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| Sam Adams now wants the imperialist US to stay in Iraq indefinitely. Witness raw hypocrisy. |
| 09.30.03 (4:14 pm) [edit] |
Remember yesterday when the international Left bitched and complained that we should 'hand over sovereignty' to Iraq as soon as possible, and that the US, as evil 'occupiers' should get out as soon as possible? This all had something to do with the Bush/Cheney junta and their evil oil designs, if I recall.
Well, not anymore. Hyper-ass Sam Adams is now parroting a new criticism from the Left, one that is 180 degrees from their previous criticisms. Instead of asking the Governing Council to draft a rough constitution in six months, as Colin Powell suggested (and only because he was pressured by the international Left and quagmire myth-makers like Adams), now Sammy is arguing for the same indefinite period of time for the US to stay in Iraq that the administration had wanted and which had been so savagely attacked by him and the Left before.
Do we need a clearer example of hypocrisy and anything-goes Bush bashing?
What about the blessed troops, Sammy? Don't you want the troops home NOW? Isn't that what the protests were over the past weekend? Isn't that what the Left has built its "Bush is Hitler" empire on?
The Bush administration has been saying since the Iraq 'conflict' began that the troops would be there as long as it took, and they wouldn't 'rush' democracy in Iraq, and that it would cost a lot. Now Left-wing smug losers like Adams on the Left say that Bush is rushing things because the administration caved and put an actual time frame on the draft of a new constitution.
You can't win with the Left. They are not anchored in morals and rational thought, so they can move from contradicting principles easily, and without shame. Hypocrisy, double-standards, etc. mean nothing to the Left, and it's because they pretend like yesterday didn't happen.
Thanks for the history lesson, Sammy. It is because Bush understands history that he's not offering a time frame for a US pullout-- he wants to do it right. It is because you nor anyone on the sick Left do NOT understand history, or choose to ignore it, that we have a 'living constitution', abortion-on-demand, and an ability to change policies and morals when it is politically convenient.
The gall to argue for a longer stay in Iraq, Sammy. If you keep it up, someday you might find yourself supporting the war.
Hypocrite.
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| More proof of the evil of abortion-- when will the madness stop? |
| 09.30.03 (3:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Behind the Holly Patterson Story[/b]
by L. Brent Bozell III
September 30, 2003
Holly Patterson died two weeks after her 18th birthday. Blonde and beautiful, graduating high school after three years, this young native of the San Francisco area had her whole life in front of her. But then she entered a Planned Parenthood clinic without her parents’ knowledge and took the abortion-drug cocktail known as RU-486. Within a week, she was dead of septic shock, infected by pieces of the baby she was trying to expel.
The heartbreaking human interest of Holly’s story did break through the national media’s usual political defenses at least for a story or two. Morning shows on ABC and CBS, as well as evening shows on CNN and MSNBC reported it (although it couldn’t be located on abortion-phobic Fox).
But the real story took place three years ago.
In September 2000, the Clinton administration rushed the approval of RU-486 through the Food and Drug Administration in case Al Gore’s campaign wouldn’t prevail to provide aid and comfort to the abortion industry.
None of the liberal media’s anti-corporate impulses were excited by the plans of the abortion lobby and Danco Laboratories, the American manufacturers of RU-486, to surpass all the usual FDA safety procedures in a rush to profit from newly approved chemical abortions. Instead, it was all an occasion for joy. On NBC’s "Today," news anchor Sara James proclaimed: "Abortion rights supporters call it a victory over medical McCarthyism."
Before RU-486 was approved, pro-life criticism was dismissed as political noise. Since then, all their criticism has been systematically dismissed by the press.
Last August, a group of pro-life researchers – the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Concerned Women for America, and the Christian Medical Association – filed a 90-page "citizen’s petition" with the FDA outlining how Clinton’s FDA ignored its own laws and procedures to rubber-stamp Mifeprex, one half of the two-drug RU-486 regimen. Mifeprex kills the baby by destroying the nutrient lining of the uterus. A few days later, Misopristol is used to expel the corpse from the womb. Here’s what went wrong:
1. Lobbyists railroaded FDA approval through the accelerated review process known as "Subpart H," designed only for drugs intended to treat life-threatening illnesses where there is no safer remedy. Only in Washington is a healthy but unwanted baby considered a life-threatening illness. In fact, Holly’s story suggests the opposite: terminating the baby caused a life-ending illness.
2. The FDA regulations overlooked the usual scientific safeguards used in clinical trials. For example, while the trials used sonograms to determine the age of the fetus, FDA regulations have not required an ultrasound before usage – even though the drug is not recommended for pregnancies beyond 49 days' gestation and it does not terminate ectopic (fallopian-tube) pregnancies. Whether or not Holly Patterson had an ectopic pregnancy is a crucial factor in investigating her death. In a previous case, an American woman bled to death because of a ruptured tubal pregnancy that wasn't distinguished from the normal heavy bleeding typical of an RU-486 abortion.
3. The FDA failed to test the drug on adolescents like Holly Patterson – even though they represent a target market, since clinics advertise it as an abortion method that increases privacy. No doubt Holly thought RU-486 was preferable because it evaded a surgical procedure.
4. The FDA normally requires that the selection of patients in a drug trial be random, that some patients receive a placebo to create a control group, and that participating physicians are not told who is and is not receiving the actual medication. In the FDA’s supposedly scientific trials for Mifeprex, the selection of subjects was not random, and no one received a placebo.
This petition was ignored by the networks. But they also ignored Danco’s admission to the FDA in April 2002 that no less than 400 women suffered complications after using RU-486. Two women had died after using Mifeprex, one from that ruptured tubal pregnancy and one from a fatal bacterial infection. Canadian drug trials were halted when a participating woman died.
Holly’s father, Monty Patterson, learned about the problem too late. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The medical community treats this as a simple pill you take, as if you’re getting rid of a headache. The procedure, the follow-ups, it’s all too lackadaisical. The girl gets a pill. Then she’s sent home to do the rest on her own. There are just too many things that can go wrong."
Will anything happen to prevent more teenage girls from dying? Here’s two reasons for pessimism. The FDA has no enforcement mechanism that requires Danco to share all the reports it receives on negative effects. And there is no greater supporter of unrestricted abortion in American society than that "watchdog" entity entrusted to shed light on this horror.
Copyright 2003 Brent Bozell. At MRC-- http://www.mrc.org/BozellColu...
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| Whaddya know: Robert Novak says CIA said Plame not 'covert' operative |
| 09.30.03 (3:41 am) [edit] |
Robert Novak, from CNN's [i]Crossfire[/i] on Monday:
"When I called the CIA in July, they confirmed Mrs. Wilson's involvement in a mission for her husband on a secondary basis, who is -- he is a former Clinton administration official. They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.
"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about, pure Bush-bashing?"
This proves something I said earlier, which the Leftist Dogmeat Jones refuted out of hand: since the CIA approved of PLame's "outing" by Novak, since it did not tell Novak such a move was a crime, she must not be a 'covert' operative. Indeed, the CIA said she was an 'analyst'.
But yes, Mr. Novak, this is pure Bush-bashing. From the man who started the allegations, Joseph Wilson, a hardcore Leftist, to the Leftist Congressmen that pounced on it to immediately discredit Bush, to the media that faithfully and without challenge spread the propaganda, to the Leftists all over the world who seek to make Bush 'Hitler'.
This is nothing but pure smear-- the ends justify the means. As far as the nujobs on the Left are concerned, the accusation itself is the verdict-- they are absolutely convinced in their tiny minds that no matter what is said or is found out by Justice, Bush is responsible. Facts that complicate their hatred are dismissed as part of the 'neo-con' conspiracy.
(Remember on this site itself when Winston Smith accused the CIA of bombing the US embassy in Liberia to deflect attention from the Bush/Cheney robber baron 'junta' quagmire of Iraq? These guys let their hate-filled fantasies get in the way of sane thought. You can't take these guys seriously.)
Can't wait to see what else is around the corner. Hodl on tight.
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| No comments! |
| 09.29.03 (10:23 pm) [edit] |
Much like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, two 'warriors' who vowed to fight the enemy face to face yet have resorted to hiding in caves and basements, showing themselves as the predictable cowards they are, Leftists attack me on the comments section of my blog and then run away, thinking that they've won some sort of argument while they are really running from a debate.
Further, unlike other Leftists on this site, I don't erase comments unless I have to re-post, in which case there is nothing I can do about the lost female taunting the Left is so good at. I let everyone see the shallowness of Left-wing thought.
However, it is clear that my comments section has devolved into a place for Leftists that hate me to not read my blogs but just bash me. Newbie, who childishly hates me because my brother irked him in high school 8 years ago, and who, by the way, is an engineer, which means he's a genius, used to do this, and now it's Dogmeat Jones, who is wrong almost all the time, and that's because he doesn't read my blogs (he's also anti-Catholic, too). I also get various potshots from other assholes giving their two bits in not on how I am wrong, but just about how bad of a person I am. Enough is enough.
My comments section is locked up indefinitely. For roving leftists like Newbie and Dogmeat, who just simply must not have lives, if they want to comment on my blogs they're going to have to actually put their giant intellects to the keyboard and write their own blogs. I won't give them a place to air their foul opinions, especially when it adds nothing to the argument.
People on this site yap about my 'negative' attitude, and I guess I do have one. But the difference is that my negativity is second to the argument that I make. I don't rely on name-calling as an intellectual tool-- my argument does not change with the absence of my sarcasm. The Left relies on hate as a policy, and that is why my comments section is closed.
Got something to say? Wanna bash me? Do it on your own blog, please. Let's see your brilliant minds at work.
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| The media refuses to admit its left-wing bias, keeps its 'peculiar institution' afloat |
| 09.29.03 (3:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]Media reporting from Iraq is one-sided and flawed[/b]
--John Leo
September 29, 2003
If you rely on newspapers and TV networks for your news, chances are you have no idea that the controversial performance of Western reporters in Iraq is emerging as a big issue. The mainstream media have virtually ignored the stunning charges made by John Burns, the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. But those charges are all over the Internet and carried by Fox News and conservative commentators.
In his new book, [i]Embedded[/i]--http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... Burns says the vast majority of correspondents in prewar Iraq played ball with Saddam and downplayed the viciousness of the regime. He said Iraq was "a grotesque charnel house" and a genuine threat to America, but to protect their access, the reporters did not tell the truth. Burns named no names (he should now) but he was particularly contemptuous of the BBC and CNN.
Burns' comments are echoed by those of U.S. District Court Judge Don Walter of Shreveport, La. This is another Internet story (dozens of sites carry it) that you aren't likely to find in newspapers. Walter was vehemently anti-war but changed his mind after an assignment in Iraq as a U.S. adviser on Iraq's courts. He says we should have invaded sooner to halt the incredible butchery and torture that the United Nations, France and Russia knew all about and were quite willing to tolerate. And he is distressed by the reporting on Iraq now: "The steady drip, drip, drip of bad news may destroy our will to fulfill the obligations we have assumed. WE ARE NOT GETTING THE WHOLE TRUTH FROM THE MEDIA." (Capitals his.)
Some members of Congress are sounding the same theme. Georgia Democrat Jim Marshall says negative media coverage is getting our troops in Iraq killed and is encouraging Baathist holdouts to think they can drive the U.S. from Iraq. Marshall, a Vietnam vet, said there is "a disconnect between the reporting and the reality," partly because the 27 reporters left in Iraq are "all huddled in a hotel."
Marshall and a bipartisan group of six other representatives just returned from Iraq. The lawmakers charged that reporters have developed an overall negative tone and a "police blotter" mind-set, stressing attacks and little else. Ranking member Ike Skelton, D.-Mo., said he was impressed with the flexibility and innovation of the American military, including 3,100 projects in northern Iraq, from soccer fields to schools to refineries, "all good stuff, and that isn't being reported."
The campaign to get more balance into Iraq reporting has been driven by the Internet bloggers, particularly by Andrew Sullivan (AndrewSullivan.com) and law professor Glenn Reynolds of the University of Tennessee (Instapundit.com). Reynolds deplores 'the lazy Vietnam-templating, the "Of course America must be losing' spin, the implicit and sometimes explicit sneer ..."
Both Reynolds and Sullivan encourage U.S. soldiers and others in Iraq to send in their own reports, which have generally been positive and hopeful. "I don't trust most of the journalists, I'm afraid," Sullivan wrote in a July appeal for firsthand accounts. Letters home from Iraq are now regularly put up on the Internet. One last week from Senior Chief Petty Officer Art Messer of the Navy Seabees said: "The countryside is getting more safe by the day despite all the attacks you are hearing about. Imagine if every shooting incident or robbery committed in Los Angeles was blown out of proportion." A few military personnel have their own blogs. One, who calls himself Chief Wiggles, is quite good.
The Internet campaign is another example of the new media going around the old media, in this case to counter stories by quagmire-oriented reporters. Perhaps goaded by Internet coverage, USA Today became the first mainstream outlet (as far as I can see) to highlight problems in current Iraq coverage. A strong article last week by Peter Johnson quoted this from MSNBC's Bob Arnot in Iraq: "I contrast some of the infectious enthusiasm I see here with what I see on TV and I say, 'Oh, my God, am I in the same country?'" Time magazine's Brian Bennett added: "What gets in the headlines is the American soldier getting shot, not the American soldiers rebuilding a school or digging a well."
Bennett says the violence and threats are real, but so are growing signs of stability in Iraqi life, with restaurants reopening every day and women feeling increasingly safe on the street.
Columnist Tom Friedman of The New York Times says he is a "worried optimist" who thinks things in Iraq are not as good as they should be by now, but not as bad as they seem from afar. That view might be a starting point for the big media to discuss how the "look from afar" got so skewed.
©2003 Universal Press Syndicate
Townhall.com--
http://www.townhall.com" title="http://www.townhall.com" target="_blank"http://www.townhall.com
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| Oh happy day-- for the Left, the accusation proves the guilt. |
| 09.29.03 (12:37 pm) [edit] |
The Left operates under the handy belief that an accusation constitutes guilt. Therefore, the fact that Joseph Wilson [i]accuses[/i] the Bush administration of leaking his wife's name to Robert Novak gives the Left all it needs to brand him as guilty. Nutjob bumper stickers and t-shirts are already being printed saying this. What is eventually found will not matter-- their legend, their folk tale, their conspiracy theory, is set. That is essentially the m.o. for the Left. Just make an accusation, any accusation-- like Bush/Cheney are in Iraq for oil, for Halliburton, something totally unproven and just nuts-- and it turns into its own reality for the Left.
*Or say that the CIA created bin-Laden, and abra cadabra-- it becomes truth.
*Or say that Bush snorted cocaine, a slander that has never been proven, even after the Left-wing
media's combing through decades of records and interviews, and it becomes truth.
*Or say that the Iraq war was 'illegal', something that is 180 degrees from the truth, by any standard, especially the standards set in international law, and it becomes truth.
*Or say that Enron and Republicans, especially Bush, are joined at the hip, when Enron was a huge political contributor to both parties over many years.
*Or manifest Bush as a 'moron' when he, and not Al Gore, was able to get through graduate school, and it becomes truth.
*Or claim that Bush's 'economic' policies have ruined the economy, without explaining what they are and forgetting that the recession started in 1999, and it becomes truth.
*Or claim that Bush's tax cuts are "for the rich" and therefore, somehow, evil, when the greatest percentage of the cuts went to the middle and lower-middle classes, and when Bush's tax cuts actually expanded the lowest income bracket, erasing the taxes of even more poor people, while at the same time giving them handouts ('tax refunds') they don't deserve, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or claim that the federal deficit, under Bush, is the highest its ever been, despite that it is not even the highest deficit in the last 20 years (much less during FDR or LBJ's term), and it becomes its own truth.
*Or claim that there is an 'unwinnable' 'quagmire' in Iraq, despite the testimony of leaders, soldiers, studies, and Iraqis themselves showing that we are welcome there and that the country's reconstruction is going very well, even with the remnants of Hussein and the foreign fighters, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or deride Bush as 'unfit' for the presidency because he was honorably discharged serving in the Texas Air National Guard and didn't serve in Vietnam, while back in the 1990s when Democrat Bill Clinton was President, his protesting in Moscow during the Vietnam war and not serving in any military capacity, being a draft-dodger didn't matter, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or say that Bush claimed the Hussein threat was 'imminent' and that he duped the Americans, while ignoring the fact that Bush made precisely the opposite claim, that we couldn't wait until the Hussein threat was imminent, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or say that Bush was the only one claiming Iraq had WMD, that he fudged the intel, when the UN Security Council, and all of its members' intelligence, agrreed with Bush's claim for the previous 12 years, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or say that Bush doesn't care about the environment with his refusal to sign Kyoto, something that would punish the US economy and actually not do anything to help the environment, and it becomes its own truth.
*Or say that Bush doesn't care about international law or prosecuting war crimes because he un-signed the sovereignty-abolishing, unconstitutional treaty for the International Criminal Court, and it becomes its own truth.
Wilson said on ABC's [i]Good Morning, America[/i] that he may have misspoken in an earlier speech when he said that Karl Rove was behind the leak of his wife's name, but then turned right around and said it wouldn't surprise him at all if Karl Rove approved of it. So we have the classic Clinton tactic of talking out both sides of your mouth: it appears as if Wilson is retracting his slander, when he turns it back into the same slander.
We're all going to find out what the truth is, but don't be surprised when the truth isn't enough for the Left. The ends justify the means with these people, and if it is found that it wasn't the Bush administration that made the leak, it will be part of the big cover up, and if it is found that one or two members of the Bush administration had done something so bad, even if Bush is proven to have no knowledge of this and fires these people and hands them over to DOJ the Left will smell blood and want Bush's head. They will want endless hearings and, most importantly, will blame [i]him[/i] and not those responsible, for the crime. That's how the Left smears.
And the evil Bush myth will grow. For generations the Left will recite the tale to their children at how they slayed the evil Bush and 'saved democracy' (or their twisted version of it).
Nutjob left-wing websites are buzzing all across the country with their revisions of the truth. It's sad that the investigation is moot already-- the accusation is all that matters, whether it's true or not.
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| Rumsfeld in his own words |
| 09.28.03 (10:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]Help Iraq to Help Itself[/b]
We're not there to stay. We are there to get the job done.
BY DONALD H. RUMSFELD
Monday, September 29, 2003 12:01 a.m.
If you are like most Americans, the news you see on television and read in the press from Iraq seems grim--stories of firefights, car bombs, battles with terrorists. It is true that Coalition troops are serving in difficult and dangerous circumstances. But what is also true, and seems to be much less often reported, is that the Coalition has--in less than five months--racked up a series of achievements in both security and civil reconstruction that may be without precedent.
I recently visited our forces in Tikrit, Mosul, Baghdad and Babylon. Their spirits are good, because they know their mission is important and they know they are making progress. Many recently got access to satellite television from the U.S.--and their first glimpse of the news coverage back home. Some expressed amazement at how few of their accomplishments are reflected in the news on Iraq. As one solider we met in Baghdad put it, "We rebuild a lot of bridges and it's not news--but one bridge gets blown up and it's a front-page story."
Their successes deserve to be told. Consider just a few of their accomplishments:
• Today, in Iraq, virtually all major hospitals and universities have been re-opened, and hundreds of secondary schools--until a few months ago used as weapons caches--have been rebuilt and were ready for the start of the fall semester.
• 56,000 Iraqis have been armed and trained in just a few months, and are contributing to the security and defense of their country. Today, a new Iraqi Army is being trained and more than 40,000 Iraqi police are conducting joint patrols with Coalition forces. By contrast, it took 14 months to establish a police force in post-war Germany--and 10 years to begin training a new German Army.
• As security improves, so does commerce: 5,000 small businesses have opened since liberation on May 1. An independent Iraqi Central Bank was established and a new currency announced in just two months--accomplishments that took three years in postwar Germany.
• The Iraqi Governing Council has been formed and has appointed a cabinet of ministers--something that took 14 months in Germany.
• In major cities and most towns and villages, municipal councils have been formed and are making decisions about local matters--something that took eight months in Germany.
• The Coalition has completed 6,000 civil affairs projects--with many more under way.
All this, and more, has taken place in less than five months. The speed and breadth of what Ambassador Paul Bremer (and his predecessor Gen. Jay Garner), Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. Rick Sanchez, and the Coalition team, both military and civilian, have accomplished is more than impressive--it may be without historical parallel. Yet much of the world does not know about this progress, because the focus remains on the security situation--which is difficult, but improving. Baath remnants and foreign terrorists are opposing the Coalition, to be sure. But the Coalition is dealing with them.
This does not mean dangers don't exist. The road ahead will not be smooth. There will be setbacks. Regime loyalists and foreign terrorists are working against the Coalition. Increasingly they do so by targeting Coalition successes. Yet the Iraqi people are providing intelligence for our forces every day. Division commanders consistently report an increase in the number of Iraqis coming forward with actionable intelligence. With Iraqi help, the Coalition has now captured or killed 43 of Iraq's 55 most wanted, as well as thousands of other Baath loyalists and terrorists, and seized large caches of weapons. As Iraqis see Coalition forces act, their confidence grows--and they are providing more information.
In Baghdad, a reporter asked why we don't just "flood the zone"--double or treble the number of American troops in the country? We could do that, but it would be a mistake.
First, as Gens. Abizaid and Sanchez have stated, they do not believe they need more American troops--if they did, they would ask and they would get them. The division commanders in Iraq have said that, far from needing more forces, additional troops could complicate their mission--because it would require more force protection, more combat support, and create pressure to adopt a defensive posture (guarding buildings, power lines, etc.), when their intention is to remain on the offense against the terrorists and Baath party remnants.
That is why, at the end of May, Gen. Jim Mattis, the Marine division commander in the south central area, decided to send home 15,000 of his 23,000 troops. As he recently explained: "If at any point I had needed more troops, I could have asked for them. But I have not needed them. The enemy over there, once we get the intelligence on them, [is] remarkably easy to destroy. My way of thinking: If we needed more people on our side, enlist more Iraqis."
That is precisely what Coalition forces are doing--training tens of thousands of Iraqis to serve as police, border guards, a new facilities protection service, a new Iraqi National Army, and an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Iraqis are eager to participate in their own security. The commanders in Iraq report that they are exceeding recruitment goals for these forces.
The Coalition is not in Iraq to stay. Our goal is to help Iraqis so they can take responsibility for the governance and security of their country, and foreign forces can leave. That is why the president has asked for $20 billion to help the Iraqis get on a path to self-government and self-reliance. He's requested $15 billion to speed repairs to Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure so Iraq can begin generating income through oil production and foreign investments. And he's requested another $5 billion to help the Iraqis assume the responsibility for the security of their own country. The goal is not for the U.S. to rebuild Iraq. Rather, it is to help the Iraqis get on a path where they can pay to rebuild their own country. The money the president is requesting is a critical element in the Coalition's exit strategy. Because the sooner we help Iraqis to defend their own people the faster Coalition forces can leave and they can get about the task of fashioning truly Iraqi solutions to their future.
In Baghdad, I met with members of the Governing Council. One message came through loud and clear: They are grateful for what Coalition forces are doing for their country. But they do not want more American troops--they want to take on more responsibility for security and governance of the country. The goal is to help them do so. Those advocating sending more Americans forces--against the expressed wishes of both our military commanders and Iraq's interim leaders--need to consider whether doing so would truly advance our objective of transferring governing responsibility to the Iraqi people.
Iraqis will have to overcome the physical and psychological effects of living three decades under a Stalinist system. But the ingredients for success are there. Iraq has oil, water and vast wheat and barley fields. It has biblical sites, and great potential for tourism. It has an educated, intelligent and industrious population. We should resist the urge to do for the Iraqis what would be better done by the Iraqis. We can help--but only if we balance the size of our presence to meet the military challenge, while putting increasing responsibility in Iraqi hands.
Mr. Rumsfeld is secretary of defense.
Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All RightsReserved.
Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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| Christmas in September: the Dems get a Bush investigation! |
| 09.28.03 (7:58 pm) [edit] |
The Justice Department has been asked to look into [i]allegations[/i] that senior Bush administration officials illegally revealed the name of a CIA operative. something that is against the law. Specifically, the CIA operative in question is Valeria Plame, the wife of Joseph Wilson, former Clinton man in charge of African Affairs at the National Security Council. The CIA and the Bush administration asked Wilson to go to Niger and see if Italian reports of an Iraq-Niger uranium deal were true. After just 8 days of not investigating, but of asking bluntly stupid questions to old friends/officials who would have it in their interest not to disclose a link with Saddam Hussein, and of 'drinking sweet mint tea' (as he described it in the NY Times), Wilson said that the Bush administration ignored his advice of Niger and uranium and that the intelligence was "twisted". It was not an in-depth investigation by Wilson.
As we all know, Bush said 16 words which the British still stand by regarding Hussein and Niger in the State of the Union Address. That is hardly twisting intelligence.
But anyway, there is an investigation being undertaken to see if any laws were broken by the administration regarding the revealing of Mrs. Plame's occupation, and of course the far-lefties like Chuck Schumer believe that since the DOJ is run by a Republican administration the investigation won't be fair. Joseph Wilson thinks it's easy to see why the Bush administration would do something like reveal his wife's job:
"It's pretty clear to me that, knowing that they could not shut me up because I had already told my story, the purpose for doing this was to intimidate others and keep others from stepping forward," Wilson said.
Question: why didn't Wilson come out with his allegations before the war? If he thought the intel was "twisted", he had a hell of a lot of time to do something about it.
As disturbing as that is, let's look at two interesting factors not mentioned in the media.
First of all, Wilson is a Clinton-man and an ideologue. He was an outspoken opponent of US military intervention in Iraq. He's an "adjunct scholar" at the Middle East Institute, which advocates for Saudi interests. On March 3, 2003 (before the war, my leftist friends) he wrote in the ultra-left neo-marxist [i]Nation[/i] of Bush's 'imperial ambitions', and worried that America "had entered one of its periods of historical madness." Do you think this man is a reliable source on a fact-finding mission? Or that he wouldn't want to hurt the Bush administration?
Wilson also wrote that the dreaded, (and mythical) "neoconservatives...have a stranglehold on the Republican party" and that "the new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our world view are implemented throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme."
What you've just read is typical conspiratorial nutjob rhetoric from the Left. Despite the clear reasons Bush stated about Iraq, and how the US did not intend to be imperialists, Wilson decided to say this before the war even started.
Wilson was a keynote speaker for the Education for Peace in Iraq center, an ultra-left organization that not only opposed US military interventions but the sanctions on Hussein and the no-fly zones (zones which helped protect the Kurds and the Shiites, both of which had been attacked by WMD and slaughtered by Hussein before.).
Wilson also [i]believed[/i] that Hussein did have biological weapons of mass destruction before the war. It was one of his (and the Left's in general) arguments [i]against[/i] taking out Hussein. Wilson told ABC news that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Hussein might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have. For example, if we're taking Baghdad or we're trying to take, in ground-to-ground, hand-to-hand combat." Further, Hussein might try to take revenge by unleashing "some sort of biological assault on an American city, not unlike the anthrax attacks we had last year."
I guess according to Wilson, the 'intel' was twisted about Iraq and Iraq wasn't that bad of a place, unless we went to war, and then Hussein would use all the weapons Wilson and the Left says the US cooked up. Yeah, that's sane.
Wilson had an ax to grind against Bush after the war, that is why in the summer he came out with his 'findings' on Iraq and Niger. He is a pro-Saudi, left-wing partisan. Of course, the Iraq-Niger story is most likely true, based on British intel, and I think we can see now why the Bush administration overlooked the advice of such a left-wing biased person. He is quite unreliable as a non-partisan source. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
But back to this investigation into whether the Bush administration leaked Wilson's wife's identity to Robert Novak and whether this was done to 'intimidate' the nut-job Wilson (really, Lefties, stop watching Oliver Stone films, ok?). This is what Novak actually said, from his July 14th column:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. [b]The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and [u]asked his wife[/u] to contact him. [/b] 'I will not answer any questions about my wife,' Wilson told me."
Notice that Novak says that the CIA said its officials contacted Wilson AND ASKED HIS WIFE to contact him. That would indicate Novak also used the CIA, and not only the Bush administration, as a source about Wilson's wife. Why would the CIA reveal the status of a classified operative? That is something that was not reported in the media.
There are also big questions as to whether Wilson's wife's position is classified information. What she does on her job is classified, but her job may not be a classified position. I'm willing to bet that her job is not a classified position and that Novak and the administration broke no law. Plame's husband seems to want to stoke this fire to make the administration look bad.
And why should we be surprised? He's a left-wing Bush-hater. The ends justify the means.
Let the investigation begin, and let the chips fall where they may. But don't ever expect a liberal to be happy with the outcome. If the DOJ finds no wrong-doing, it will merely be another part of their Quixotic neo-con conspiracy, a conspiracy that doesn't exist.
The only outcome that would please them is Bush's removal from office.
Sources--
May, Clifford D. "Scandal! Bush's enemies aren't telling the truth about what he said." [i]National Review Online.[/i] http://www.nationalreview.com... . July 11, 2003.
Novak, Robert. "Mission to Niger." [i]Townhall.com[/i]. http://www.townhall.com/colum... . July 14, 2003
Reichman, Deb, "Justice Probes Leak of CIA Agent's Name." [i]Associated Press.[/i] http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... September 28, 2003.
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| The real deal on the UN and Iraq |
| 09.28.03 (12:16 am) [edit] |
[b]Motives in the U.N.[/b]
Amir Taheri
September 28, 2003
General De Gaulle called it “the gadget”. The late Pakistani leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto branded it “a club of queer trades.” And, more recently, President George W Bush warned that it had become “irrelevant”. And, yet, the United Nations has just opened its annual general assembly in New York with as much stiff upper lip as it could master.
The war in Iraq shook the UN to its foundations by highlighting its contradictions.
[b]The issue was not whether or not the United States and Britain should go to war without express authorisation from the Security Council. Similar interventions had taken place before, most recently in the Balkans where NATO, led by the US, took military action to save the Muslim peoples of Bosnia and Kosovo from extermination by the Serbs.[/b]
Nor was “regime change” the issue.
[b]The Tanzanian army that ended Idi Amin’s reign in Uganda had no Security Council mandate. Nor was Vietnam mandated by the UN to march into Cambodia and overthrow the Khmer Rouge. France has engineered several regime changes in former African colonies without asking anyone’s permission. [/b]
The Iraq issue was special for several reasons.
[b]This was the first time that the Security Council, was used in attempts to prevent the enforcement of its resolutions. Since 1990 the council had passed 18 mandatory resolutions, often unanimously, concerning Iraq, but had done little to enforce their essential provisions.[/b]
Some members, notably France and Russia, pretended that taking action against Saddam Hussein was illegal. But they did not have the courage to test that view by tabling a draft resolution to that effect.
At the same time the US and the UK, which asserted their duty to enforce the council’s resolutions, also shied away from testing their view in an open vote.
Even when the war had began, those opposed to it lacked the courage to seek an emergency session of the Security Council, as in so many other cases before, to call for a ceasefire. Nor has any council member presented a draft resolution seeking an end to “ the occupation ”of Iraq.
The council has ended up with two opposite positions, which, in moral terms at least, means none at all.
Worse still, those who opposed the war did so for reasons that had little to do with Iraq’s dispute with the UN.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose country happens to be a Security Council member by rotation, initially supported action against Saddam. But he was in the middle of a difficult general election. At one point pollsters told him that only an anti-war position might get him enough votes among German women to ensure a narrow victory.
Overnight he changed his position to re-emerge as a vocal opponent of action against Saddam. With his re-election assured, Schroeder moved away from his opposition to the war, welcomed Saddam’s demise, and tried to repair the damage done to US-German relations by sending German troops to Afghanistan to release the GIs for service in Iraq.
Russian opposition, too, had little to do with Iraq as such.
The Russians tried to butter their bread on both sides.
They cultivated ambiguity on the issue to secure concessions from the US-UK coalition, including a free hand in Chechnya and the promise of a share in the future, and as yet problematic, Iraqi oil.
The French position was still more interesting.
For them the question was not whether or not Saddam should be forced to comply with the UN resolutions. The question was how to fight the “ the American hyper-power.”
This is how French scholar Gillaume Parmentier puts it: ” The reason why France articulates its concern {about American hegemony} more strongly than others is that France’s history has been one of resisting to monopolies of power in Europe.”
He recalls how France became a nation-state despite attempts by the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope to dominate Europe.
“Resistance to foreign empires is deeply ingrained in French political culture,” Parmentier asserts.
Was the US seeking a “monopoly of power in Europe” by toppling Saddam? Is the US comparable to the Holy Roman Empire and the Popes of the Middle Ages or the Nazis in the 20th century?
[b]Parmentier forgets France’s own bid for a monopoly of power in Europe under Napoleon. And need one mention that France signed the Munich pact with Hitler?[/b]
Echoing Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, Parmentier shows that France’s opposition to military action against Iraq was prompted not by the merits of the issue but as part of a broader strategy of “ resisting American hegemony”.
In other words France would not have been aggrieved if Iraq were liberated by Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, rather than by the US and the UK.
The case of Iraq shows that various powers could use the Security Council, which is supposed to be an instrument of international will, to serve domestic political agendas that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Schroeder probably did not wish the Iraqis to suffer under Saddam’s tyranny for decades. What Schroeder was concerned about was getting the extra women’s vote he wanted. Vladimir Putin was equally uninterested in the Iraqi issue as such. He wanted carte blanche in Chechnya and a future share in Iraqi oil. Jacques Chirac, too, was not really concerned about Iraq. Unable to develop a meaningful foreign policy, he exploited the issue as an opportunity to thumb his nose at the American “hyper-power.”
(Opponents of the war could, of course, use a similar argument against the US and the UK. They could argue that Washington and London , too, didn’t care about the sufferings of Iraq under Saddam and acted to topple him to serve their own interests.
Such an argument, whether sustainable or not, would only reinforce the contention that the Security Council has ceased to exist as an instrument of international decision-making. )
Until the row over Iraq broke out, the Security Council, thanks to the veto given to its permanent members, could say either yes or no to action on urgent issues of international life.
The Iraq issue introduced a new answer that is neither yes nor no. It exists in Japanese as “ mu” , which means : “unask your question”, and in Persian as “bari” which means “ referred to God”.
Kofi Annan is trying hard to “mu” and “bari” things. But there is something rotten in the organisation symbolised by its glass tower in New York.
[i]Amir Taheri is an Iranian author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam. He's reachable through www.benadorassociates.com.[/i]
Copyright 2003 Amir Taheri
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| Do Catholics really confess their sins to a priest instead of God? |
| 09.27.03 (11:11 pm) [edit] |
One of the popular Protestant/Islamic/Atheis t/Secular myths about Catholics is that they confess their sins to a priest, a man, who alone forgives them of their sins. According to the Protestants this is anti-Christian and unscriptural, according to the Muslims this is blasphemy, and according to the Atheists/Secularists it just proves how screwed up and hypocritical the Catholic church is.
However, they are all wrong: Catholics do not confess to and receive forgiveness from a priest. They confess to God in front of a priest and the priest, through the power of the Holy Spirit, a power Jesus conferred upon His apostles (His disciples, his bishops and their priests) forgives or retains them of their sin.
Roll scripture:
Matthew 16:19 (Jesus to Peter): "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Matthew 18:18 (Jesus to the disciples): "Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
John 20:21-23 (Jesus to the disciples): [Jesus] said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
The Church is actually fulfilling Jesus' charge to His apostles, still, 2000 years after his first admonition to them. The Church is apostolic because Jesus wanted His church to be so.
When Catholics finish confession the Pries does [i]not[/i]say "I forgive you of your sins." No, the Priest always says "Through the power of the Holy Spirit I forgive you of your sins." There are variations, but the this needs to be reinforced: a Priest only forgives sins through the power that Christ granted them to forgive sins, which is found in scripture. They can refuse to forgive a person's sins ('retain' the sins) if the person is not truly sorry for them.
More on Confession from Catholic Answers-- http://www.catholic.com
[b]Confession[/b]
Are all of our sins—past, present, and future—forgiven once and for all when we become Christians? Not according to the Bible or the early Church Fathers. Scripture nowhere states that our future sins are forgiven; instead, it teaches us to pray, "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12).
The means by which God forgives sins after baptism is confession: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Minor or venial sins can be confessed directly to God, but for grave or mortal sins, which crush the spiritual life out of the soul, God has instituted a different means for obtaining forgiveness—the sacrament known popularly as confession, penance, or reconciliation.
This sacrament is rooted in the mission God gave to Christ in his capacity as the Son of man on earth to go and forgive sins (cf. Matt. 9:6). Thus, the crowds who witnessed this new power "glorified God, who had given such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8; note the plural "men"). After his resurrection, Jesus passed on his mission to forgive sins to his ministers, telling them, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21–23).
Since it is not possible to confess all of our many daily faults, we know that sacramental reconciliation is required only for grave or mortal sins—but it is required, or Christ would not have commanded it.
Over time, the forms in which the sacrament has been administered have changed. In the early Church, publicly known sins (such as apostasy) were often confessed openly in church, though private confession to a priest was always an option for privately committed sins. Still, confession was not just something done in silence to God alone, but something done "in church," as the Didache (A.D. 70) indicates.
Penances also tended to be performed before rather than after absolution, and they were much more strict than those of today (ten years’ penance for abortion, for example, was common in the early Church).
But the basics of the sacrament have always been there, as the following quotations reveal. Of special significance is their recognition that confession and absolution must be received by a sinner before receiving Holy Communion, for "[w]hoever . . . eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:27).
[b]The Didache[/b]
"Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure" (Didache 4:14, 14:1 [A.D. 70]).
[b]The Letter of Barnabas[/b]
"You shall judge righteously. You shall not make a schism, but you shall pacify those that contend by bringing them together. You shall confess your sins. You shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of light" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74]).
[b]Ignatius of Antioch[/b]
"For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3 [A.D. 110]).
"For where there is division and wrath, God does not dwell. To all them that repent, the Lord grants forgiveness, if they turn in penitence to the unity of God, and to communion with the bishop" (ibid., 8 ) .
[b]Irenaeus[/b]
"[The Gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded many women. . . . Their consciences have been branded as with a hot iron. Some of these women make a public confession, but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses" (Against Heresies 1:22 [A.D. 189]).
[b]Tertullian[/b]
"[Regarding confession, some] flee from this work as being an exposure of themselves, or they put it off from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of modesty than of salvation, like those who contract a disease in the more shameful parts of the body and shun making themselves known to the physicians; and thus they perish along with their own bashfulness" (Repentance 10:1 [A.D. 203]).
[b]Hippolytus[/b]
"[The bishop conducting the ordination of the new bishop shall pray:] God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Pour forth now that power which comes from you, from your royal Spirit, which you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his holy apostles . . . and grant this your servant, whom you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power] to feed your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high priest, ministering night and day to propitiate unceasingly before your face and to offer to you the gifts of your holy Church, and by the Spirit of the high priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your command" (Apostolic Tradition 3 [A.D. 215]).
[b]Origen[/b]
"[A final method of forgiveness], albeit hard and laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner . . . does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine, after the manner of him who say, ‘I said, "To the Lord I will accuse myself of my iniquity"’" (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248]).
[b]Cyprian of Carthage[/b]
"The apostle [Paul] likewise bears witness and says: ‘ . . . Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest . . . they do violence to [the Lord’s] body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him" (The Lapsed 15:1–3 (A.D. 251]).
"Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who . . . confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. . . . I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord" (ibid., 28).
"[S]inners may do penance for a set time, and according to the rules of discipline come to public confession, and by imposition of the hand of the bishop and clergy receive the right of Communion. [But now some] with their time [of penance] still unfulfilled . . . they are admitted to Communion, and their name is presented; and while the penitence is not yet performed, confession is not yet made, the hands of the bishop and clergy are not yet laid upon them, the Eucharist is given to them; although it is written, ‘Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]" (Letters 9:2 [A.D. 253]).
"And do not think, dearest brother, that either the courage of the brethren will be lessened, or that martyrdoms will fail for this cause, that penance is relaxed to the lapsed, and that the hope of peace [i.e., absolution] is offered to the penitent. . . . For to adulterers even a time of repentance is granted by us, and peace is given" (ibid., 51[55]:20).
"But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, when it is written, ‘Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works’ [Rev. 2:5], which certainly is said to him who evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by his deeds [of penance], because it is written, ‘Alms deliver from death’ [Tob. 12:9]" (ibid., 51[55]:22).
[b]Aphraahat the Persian Sage[/b]
"You [priests], then, who are disciples of our illustrious physician [Christ], you ought not deny a curative to those in need of healing. And if anyone uncovers his wound before you, give him the remedy of repentance. And he that is ashamed to make known his weakness, encourage him so that he will not hide it from you. And when he has revealed it to you, do not make it public, lest because of it the innocent might be reckoned as guilty by our enemies and by those who hate us" (Treatises 7:3 [A.D. 340]).
[b]Basil the Great[/b]
"It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist [Matt. 3:6], but in Acts [19:18] they confessed to the apostles" (Rules Briefly Treated 288 [A.D. 374]).
[b]John Chrysostom[/b]
"Priests have received a power which God has given neither to angels nor to archangels. It was said to them: ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose, shall be loosed.’ Temporal rulers have indeed the power of binding; but they can only bind the body. Priests, in contrast, can bind with a bond which pertains to the soul itself and transcends the very heavens. Did [God] not give them all the powers of heaven? ‘Whose sins you shall forgive,’ he says, ‘they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.’ What greater power is there than this? The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men [Matt. 10:40; John 20:21–23]. They are raised to this dignity as if they were already gathered up to heaven" (The Priesthood 3:5 [A.D. 387]).
[b]Ambrose of Milan[/b]
"For those to whom [the right of binding and loosing] has been given, it is plain that either both are allowed, or it is clear that neither is allowed. Both are allowed to the Church, neither is allowed to heresy. For this right has been granted to priests only" (Penance 1:1 [A.D. 388]).
[b]Jerome[/b]
"If the serpent, the devil, bites someone secretly, he infects that person with the venom of sin. And if the one who has been bitten keeps silence and does not do penance, and does not want to confess his wound . . . then his brother and his master, who have the word [of absolution] that will cure him, cannot very well assist him" (Commentary on Ecclesiastes 10:11 [A.D. 388]).
"We read in Leviticus about lepers, where they are ordered to show themselves to the priests, and if they have leprosy, then they are to be declared unclean by the priest. . . . Just as in the Old Testament the priest makes the leper clean or unclean, so in the New Testament the bishop or presbyter binds or looses not those who are innocent or guilty, but by reason of their office, when they have heard various kinds of sins, they know who is to be bound and who is to be loosed" (Commentary on Matthew 3:16:19 [A.D. 398]).
[b]Augustine[/b]
"When you shall have been baptized, keep to a good life in the commandments of God so that you may preserve your baptism to the very end. I do not tell you that you will live here without sin, but they are venial sins which this life is never without. Baptism was instituted for all sins. For light sins, without which we cannot live, prayer was instituted. . . . But do not commit those sins on account of which you would have to be separated from the body of Christ. Perish the thought! For those whom you see doing penance have committed crimes, either adultery or some other enormities. That is why they are doing penance. If their sins were light, daily prayer would suffice to blot them out. . . . In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance" (Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed 7:15, 8:16 [A.D. 395]).
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| Moscow turned Arafat into a terrorist |
| 09.27.03 (6:46 pm) [edit] |
[b]The KGB's Man
Moscow turned Arafat into a terrorist.[/b]
BY ION MIHAI PACEPA
Saturday, September 27, 2003 12:01 a.m.
The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an "obstacle" to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades.
Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world's "kings, queens & despots," with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.
"I invented the hijackings [of passenger planes]," Arafat bragged when I first met him at his PLO headquarters in Beirut in the early 1970s. He gestured toward the little red flags pinned on a wall map of the world that labeled Israel as "Palestine." "There they all are!" he told me, proudly. The dubious honor of inventing hijacking actually goes to the KGB, which first hijacked a U.S. passenger plane in 1960 to Communist Cuba. Arafat's innovation was the suicide bomber, a terror concept that would come to full flower on 9/11.
In 1972, the Kremlin put Arafat and his terror networks high on all Soviet bloc intelligence services' priority list, including mine. Bucharest's role was to ingratiate him with the White House. We were the bloc experts at this. We'd already had great success in making Washington--as well as most of the fashionable left-leaning American academics of the day--believe that Nicolae Ceausescu was, like Josip Broz Tito, an "independent" Communist with a "moderate" streak.
KGB chairman Yuri Andropov in February 1972 laughed to me about the Yankee gullibility for celebrities. We'd outgrown Stalinist cults of personality, but those crazy Americans were still naïve enough to revere national leaders. We would make Arafat into just such a figurehead and gradually move the PLO closer to power and statehood. Andropov thought that Vietnam-weary Americans would snatch at the smallest sign of conciliation to promote Arafat from terrorist to statesman in their hopes for peace.
Right after that meeting, I was given the KGB's "personal file" on Arafat. He was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.
The KGB's disinformation department then went to work on Arafat's four-page tract called Falastinuna ("Our Palestine"), turning it into a 48-page monthly magazine for the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah. Arafat had headed al-Fatah since 1957. The KGB distributed it throughout the Arab world and in West Germany, which in those days played host to many Palestinian students. The KGB was adept at magazine publication and distribution; it had many similar periodicals in various languages for its front organizations in Western Europe, like the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Trade Unions.
Next, the KGB gave Arafat an ideology and an image, just as it did for loyal Communists in our international front organizations. High-minded idealism held no mass-appeal in the Arab world, so the KGB remolded Arafat as a rabid anti-Zionist. They also selected a "personal hero" for him--the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the man who visited Auschwitz and reproached the Germans for not having killed even more Jews. In 1985 Arafat paid homage to the mufti, saying he was "proud no end" to be walking in his footsteps.
Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB. Right after the 1967 Six Day War, Moscow got him appointed to chairman of the PLO. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet puppet, proposed the appointment. In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-Fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. It appealed to him so much, Arafat later claimed to have invented the imperial-Zionist battle cry. But in fact, "imperial-Zionism" was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and long a favorite tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism.
The KGB file on Arafat also said that in the Arab world only people who were truly good at deception could achieve high status. We Romanians were directed to help Arafat improve "his extraordinary talent for deceiving." The KGB chief of foreign intelligence, Gen. Aleksandr Sakharovsky, ordered us to provide cover for Arafat's terror operations, while at the same time building up his international image. "Arafat is a brilliant stage manager," his letter concluded, "and we should put him to good use." In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel--over, and over, and over," Ceausescu told him for the umpteenth time. Ceausescu was euphoric over the prospect that both Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake displays of the olive branch.
In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he charmed President Carter. Arafat, he urged, would transform his brutal PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile if only the U.S. would establish official relations. The meeting was a great success for us. Mr. Carter hailed Ceausescu, dictator of the most repressive police state in Eastern Europe, as a "great national and international leader" who had "taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community." Triumphant, Ceausescu brought home a joint communiqué in which the American president stated that his friendly relations with Ceausescu served "the cause of the world."
Three months later I was granted political asylum by the U.S. Ceausescu failed to get his Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1994 Arafat got his--all because he continued to play the role we had given him to perfection. He had transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority), always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73%.
On Oct. 23, 1998, President Clinton concluded his public remarks to Arafat by thanking him for "decades and decades and decades of tireless representation of the longing of the Palestinian people to be free, self-sufficient, and at home." The current administration sees through Arafat's charade but will not publicly support his expulsion. Meanwhile, the aging terrorist has consolidated his control over the Palestinian Authority and marshaled his young followers for more suicide attacks.
[i]Mr. Pacepa was the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. The author of "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987), he is finishing a book on the origins of current anti-Americanism.[/i]
Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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| For Dogmeat: Catholic Church and the Creation (just thought I'd let you know) |
| 09.27.03 (6:26 pm) [edit] |
In my last post about the Catholic church, Dogmeat decided to take an anti-Catholic swipe at me by attempting to tell me what Catholics believe. He thought he'd let me know that Catholics believe that the world is only 4,000 years old while at the same time it ignores the science of carbon dating.
Well, clearly, Dogmeat just wanted to be a bigot, because the Church [i]does not[/i] believe that (and it had nothing to do with my blog). I can't think of anything dumber than trying to tell a Catholic what he/she thinks, but clearly Dogmeat wants to slur the church.
The Church is the Church, it was started by Christ. Therefore, the interpretation of scripture, the authority, rests with Christ's church (through the Holy Spirit). A lot of fundamentalist Christians (protestants) believe that God made the earth in real 24 hour days and all that. The Catholic Church's position embraces the notion that a "day" for God could be thousands of years--or more. Genesis was written during David's reign-- does anyone honestly think that the tale-tellers back then would have come up with any other way to describe the creation of the earth than in days--something the people could relate to?
In short, the Church embraces what science tells us today-- it defines what is real in the bible and what is symbolic. The Church actually believes that science proves God's existence.
Dogmeat should understand this instead of looking to be a bigot.
[b]Creation and Genesis[/b]
Fundamentalists often make it a test of Christian orthodoxy to believe that the world was created in six 24-hour days and that no other interpretations of Genesis 1 are possible. They claim that until recently this view of Genesis was the only acceptable one—indeed, the only one there was.
The writings of the Fathers, who were much closer than we are in time and culture to the original audience of Genesis, show that this was not the case. There was wide variation of opinion on how long creation took. Some said only a few days; others argued for a much longer, indefinite period. Those who took the latter view appealed to the fact "that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3:8; cf. Ps. 90:4), that light was created on the first day, but the sun was not created till the fourth day (Gen. 1:3, 16), and that Adam was told he would die the same "day" as he ate of the tree, yet he lived to be 930 years old (Gen. 2:17, 5:5).
Catholics are at liberty to believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period, according to how they see the evidence, and subject to any future judgment of the Church (Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis 36–37). They need not be hostile to modern cosmology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "[M]any scientific studies . . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. These studies invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator" (CCC 283). Still, science has its limits (CCC 284, 2293–4).
[b]Justin Martyr[/b]
"For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years [Gen. 5:5]. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression ‘The day of the Lord is a thousand years’ [Ps. 90:4] is connected with this subject" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 81 [A.D. 155]).
[b]Theophilus of Antioch[/b]
"On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it" (To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).
"All the years from the creation of the world [to Theophilus’ day] amount to a total of 5,698 years and the odd months and days. . . . If even a chronological error has been committed by us, for example, of 50 or 100 or even 200 years, yet [there have] not [been] the thousands and tens of thousands, as Plato and Apollonius and other mendacious authors have hitherto written. And perhaps our knowledge of the whole number of the years is not quite accurate, because the odd months and days are not set down in the sacred books" (ibid., 3:28–29).
[b]Irenaeus[/b]
"And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since ‘a day of the Lord is a thousand years,’ he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin" (Against Heresies 5:23:2 [A.D. 189]).
[b]Clement of Alexandria[/b]
"And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? . . . That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth’ [Gen. 2:4]. For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression ‘in the day that God made them,’ that is, in and by which God made ‘all things,’ and ‘without which not even one thing was made,’ points out the activity exerted by the Son" (Miscellanies 6:16 [A.D. 208]).
[b]Origen[/b]
"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).
"The text said that ‘there was evening and there was morning’; it did not say ‘the first day,’ but said ‘one day.’ It is because there was not yet time before the world existed. But time begins to exist with the following days" (Homilies on Genesis [A.D. 234]).
"And since he [the pagan Celsus] makes the statements about the ‘days of creation’ ground of accusation—as if he understood them clearly and correctly, some of which elapsed before the creation of light and heaven, the sun and moon and stars, and some of them after the creation of these we shall only make this observation, that Moses must have forgotten that he had said a little before ‘that in six days the creation of the world had been finished’ and that in consequence of this act of forgetfulness he subjoins to these words the following: ‘This is the book of the creation of man in the day when God made the heaven and the earth [Gen. 2:4]’" (Against Celsus 6:51 [A.D. 248]).
"And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day . . . and of the [great] lights and stars upon the fourth . . . we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world" (ibid., 6:60).
"For he [the pagan Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath and rest of God, which follows the completion of the world’s creation, and which lasts during the duration of the world, and in which all those will keep the festival with God who have done all their work in their six days" (ibid., 6:61).
[b]Cyprian[/b]
"The first seven days in the divine arrangement contain seven thousand years" (Treatises 11:11 [A.D. 250]).
Victorinus
"God produced the entire mass for the adornment of his majesty in six days. On the seventh day, he consecrated it with a blessing" (On the Creation of the World [A.D. 280]).
[b]Lactantius[/b]
"Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six-thousandth year is not yet complete. . . . Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day [Ps. 90:4]’" (Divine Institutes 7:14 [A.D. 307]).
[b]Basil The Great[/b]
"‘And there was evening and morning, one day.’ Why did he say ‘one’ and not ‘first’? . . . He said ‘one’ because he was defining the measure of day and night . . . since twenty-four hours fill up the interval of one day" (The Six Days Work 1:1–2 [A.D. 370]).
[b]Ambrose of Milan[/b]
"Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . The nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts of the days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day. There are many who call even a week one day, because it returns to itself, just as one day does, and one might say seven times revolves back on itself. Hence, Scripture appeals at times of an age of the world" (Hexaemeron [A.D. 393]).
[b]Augustine[/b]
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation" (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20 [A.D. 408]).
"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation" (ibid., 2:9).
"Seven days by our reckoning, after the model of the days of creation, make up a week. By the passage of such weeks time rolls on, and in these weeks one day is constituted by the course of the sun from its rising to its setting; but we must bear in mind that these days indeed recall the days of creation, but without in any way being really similar to them" (ibid., 4:27).
"[A]t least we know that it [the Genesis creation day] is different from the ordinary day with which we are familiar" (ibid., 5:2).
"For in these days [of creation] the morning and evening are counted until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!" (The City of God 11:6 [A.D. 419]).
"We see that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting [of the sun] and no morning but by the rising of the sun, but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness and called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night’; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was and yet must unhesitatingly believe it" (ibid., 11:7).
"They [pagans] are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of [man as] many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed" (ibid., 12:10).
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| Immigration in the US: Laws? We don't need no steenking laws! |
| 09.26.03 (10:37 pm) [edit] |
Do you support the "Freedom Rides?" What? You mean you haven't heard of the 'Freedom Rides'? Well, if you live in a major American city, you can expect to see busloads of illegal immigrants cruising into town touting their 'cause', which is that regardless of their status in the United States, immigrants of all kinds should be given all the rights of law-abiding US citizens. In other words, we should let anyone at anytime, and from anywhere come into the country and receive all of the benefits of citizenship. I mean, aren't laws just stupid, anyway?
And hey, why not abolish ALL law? Wouldn't that only be fair?
Of course, as with most great Left-wing 'causes', we get sad stories and stories that have nothing to do with immigration at all. In an AP article linked below we hear of the plight of immigrants who came here, who know what it's like to be a stranger in a strange land. "I want to support the immigrants who struggle, making it easier to live here," said one daughter of immigrants. I think the way you could do that is by making sure that immigrants play by the rules and exist in this country [i]legally[/i]. Being legal would reduce a lot of the stress right there. With citizenship comes privileges. You should not be rewarded for breaking the law.
'We want to be heard' is the lament from the illegals on the 'Freedom Rides', but in fact they do not deserve to be heard. I would no sooner expect to have all the rights of a Mexican citizen if I were in Mexico illegally, so why should the opposite be accepted in the US?
One story from a "Freedom Rider" had nothing to do with immigration. According to the article:
'Mako Nakagawa, 66, of Seattle, whose father came to the United States from Japan in 1913, said she wanted to ride to support immigrants who are fighting for a better life here.
"This government put my father in a concentration camp for two years," she said. "People are being detained today without being charged. This is so close to what happened to my family in 1942." '
And don't you just want to burn down the White House with that realization? Since it is hard to justify giving rights to illegal aliens, the protesters want to put a guilt trip on the government that has absolutely nothing to do with immigration.
During World War 2, a war inflicted upon us by the Japanese Empire, the US government removed from sensitive areas (mainly the west coast) about 50,000 Japanese Americans and gave them a choice-- A CHOICE: they could live in housing in camps which, in a lot of instances were better living conditions that what they were currently living in, or they could move from their homes (35,000 Japanese chose to move, and 15,000 lived in the camps). Sound harsh? Right after Pearl Harbor, between 5,000 and 7,000 Japanese Americans renounced their citizenship and pledged allegiance to the Empire. It seems to me that this was a prudent security choice for the FDR administration to make. It had nothing to do with race, and had less to do with immigration.
Also during World War 2, which I can bet nobody reading this knows, there were as many German and Italian Americans relocated or put in camps as there were Japanese. Yet you're not reading any sob story about that, are you?
(These 'concentration' camps were so bad for the Japanese, so evil, that after the war was over the Japanese American Citizens League sued to keep them open. Auschwitz and Buchenwald these camps were definitely not).
Lastly, the folks 'being detained' today are detained because [i]they are not US citizens, but are here illegally. They have no US rights other than basic human rights which the government recognizes![/i]. That has absolutely nothing to do with "what happened" to Mako's family back in '42.
Of course, none of this has a thing to do with immigration. Like all Left-wing causes it has to do with emotion, guilt, and hate. What's the value of being an American citizen if anyone can be one? These illegals have the arrogance to tour the country demanding that the government do something FOR THEM. They know they can use their plight as a crutch to excuse their lawbreaking. This is a government of, by, and for the people of the United States, not the people of the world. They should be rounded up and sent back. They can enter and live in this country legally.
"We the people" have a right to make sure that those that want to become US citizens are of the highest character. What does it say about those who willingly break the law to get here? There are illegals that have been illegals in this country for decades. While some may have landed on our shores seeking refuge from oppressive governments, that does not excuse the fact that they are still not here legally.
It's a sad day for America when those that break the law think the deserve the same rights as those that don't.
Do you want more terrorism, higher taxes, and a larger deficit? Then let illegals do what they want in the United States.
Here's the article. God save the USA. –
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap /20030924/ap_on_re_us/imm igrants_freedom_ride_6" title="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap /20030924/ap_on_re_us/imm igrants_freedom_ride_6" target="_blank"http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
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| Transubstantiation is no magic trick, it is THE miracle of Jesus |
| 09.26.03 (6:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Real Presence[/b]
The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as "unbiblical," but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. [b]1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71[/b]).
The early Church Fathers interpreted these passages literally. In summarizing the early Fathers’ teachings on Christ’s Real Presence, renowned Protestant historian of the early Church J. N. D. Kelly, writes: "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood" (Early Christian Doctrines, 440).
From the Church’s early days, the Fathers referred to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Kelly writes: "Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body. . . . Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood. His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity" (ibid., 197–98).
"Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally" (ibid., 211–12).
[b]Ignatius of Antioch[/b]
"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).
"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
[b]Justin Martyr[/b]
"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).
[b]Irenaeus[/b]
"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).
"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).
[b]Clement of Alexandria[/b]
"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).
[b]Tertullian[/b]
"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).
[b]Hippolytus[/b]
"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).
[b]Origen[/b]
"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:56]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).
[b]Cyprian of Carthage[/b]
"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).
[b]Council of Nicaea I[/b]
"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [i.e., priests], whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]" (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).
[b]Aphraahat the Persian Sage[/b]
"After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink" (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).
[b]Cyril of Jerusalem[/b]
"The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ" (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).
"Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul" (ibid., 22:6, 9).
[b]Ambrose of Milan[/b]
"Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ" (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).
[b]Theodore of Mopsuestia[/b]
"When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).
[b]Augustine[/b]
"Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands" (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).
"I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ" (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).
"What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction" (ibid., 272).
[b]Council of Ephesus[/b]
"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving" (Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]).
Visit Catholic Answers-- http://www.catholic.com
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| Clinton's Gen. Zinni lies about Iraq and Bush, recycles 'imminence', neo-con canard. |
| 09.26.03 (1:21 pm) [edit] |
General Anthony Zinni, who was a Bill Clinton appointee, the former head of CENTCOM, and who retired in 2000, is getting a lot of exposure for his interview on [i]Nightline[/i] last night for saying that he never believed the claims that Saddam Hussein's threat was 'imminent', which, according to the articles was "President Bush's major justification for going to war." Also, Zinni believes that there was faulty intelligence or "twisted" intelligence to make a more "convenient" case for war, and that it is all the neo-cons' fault.
Again, Zinni is lying, and the media, in its Leftist tradition, is intentionally spreading his lies to muddle Bush's real reasons for going to war, which he has stated, every time, since late 2001. This is designed to organize opinion against Bush. It is not journalism.
1)Bush, nor anyone in the administration, ever claimed that the Hussein threat was "imminent". It is because Hussein's threat was 'grave and gathering' and unknown due to 12 years of useless diplomacy allowing Hussein to violate UN Chapter 7 Security Council Resolutions, that Bush said we had to act now, in the new world after 9-11, where we have to know what happened to Hussei's WMD. Zinni flat-out lied.
President Bush's major justification for going to war was not that Hussein was an 'imminent threat' but that the whereabouts of Hussein's WMD, which he could give to terrorists, and which he hadn't accounted for as demanded by the world (the UN), which were unknown, demanded US action. The US actually did what the UN was required to do via its own obligations.
2)Zinni was behind Desert Fox and other Clinton-sanctioned defense measures against bin Laden. He used the same f-----g intelligence that Bush used to justify his actions. It is a purely political and vicious move to say that the intel that the UN members (incl. France, Russia), Bush, Sr., and Clinton used to shape Iraq policy for 12 years is suddenly cooked up by a Bush administration inheriting Clinton's military and Zinni's leadership failures.
And the mere fact that there is speculation and accusations without charges and letters of impeachment are proof positive that this is all one huge smear campaign.
3)To call someone a "neo-con" is to slur him/her and avoid using facts. I have to ask the Lefties, and Anthony Zinni. Is not acting against Iraq's human rights violations and violations of the US/UN cease-fire, preferable than to upholding the norms of human rights and international 'law'? Because that is what the Left is arguing for. All of a sudden, the Left is forced to approve of the actions of the Hussein regime. Was Clinton a 'neo-con' for acting against Iraq? And further, is the appropriate behavior regarding Iraq apathy toward the plight of the Iraqi people under Hussein, or furthering back-door oil contracts with the regime in violation of the oil-for-food program as Russian and France did?
Zinni is a disgrace to the uniform, much like Wes Clark. Clinton appointees, they spin tales bashing Bush, when they were leaders in Clinton's wars in the 1990s, all conflicts that didn't even attempt to draw in the international community, much less the people of the United States. The same intel used was the same intel that Zinni used to justify his actions in the 1990s.
And the fact that the media will repeat the lies about Bush, that he said the Hussein threat was "imminent", that he somehow cooked up intel, and that it is all a plot by the 'neo-cons' and Halliburton, show how immoral and hate-filled the Left has become. Zinni, the Left, and the media should be ashamed of themselves, and if you take yourself seriously as a Leftist, you're nothing but a liar.
Until you can recognize the truth about Iraq you have no business opining on it. Criticism based on lies is hypocrisy.
It's sick. But for the Left, the ends justify the means. All moral people, all those who care about truth more than power, should oppose the Left every chance they get.
The article-- http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
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| Dick Cheney and Halliburton-- why does it matter? |
| 09.26.03 (12:42 pm) [edit] |
Can I get a Leftist to tell me how Dick Cheney’s association with Halliburton, a company that has won no-bid contracts under each presidential administration going back decades (including, yes, Bill Clinton’s), because they are good at what they do, means anything nefarious?
I mean, let’s assume that the nutjob left-wing conspirators are right. Let’s say that George Bush and Dick Cheney went to war to line their pockets with Halliburton money. Is that politically sane to do? Wouldn’t the public be overthrowing the government as we speak? And why hasn’t the Left-wing media uncovered this yet? Secondly, what about all the other US companies and government agencies over in Iraq rebuilding? Are they part of the ‘conspiracy’ too?
Since the Left has a penchant for forgetting history, they forget about Bill Clinton’s big business ties, how he received campaign cash from Loral Space, Hughes Electronics, and Boeing so Clinton—by executive order, no less—would loosen export controls to China, paving the way for the communist nation’s upgrade to state-of-the-art supercomputers for military use (and guess where their nukes are pointed?), eventually rivalling the US military.
(But hey, the Leftist would argue, China deserves nukes and the ability to wipe out democracies in Asia!)
When Bill Clinton was unilaterally, and without Congressional approval, bombing civilians in Kosovo or turning Somalia into a quagmire, there was never any international movement against Clinton’s ‘unilateralism’. When Desert Fox was commenced in 1998 against Iraq, nary a word was mentioned from the Left-wing nutjobs about the peculiar timing of such an operation (occuring as it did during Clinton’s impeachment). There are things Clinton did that left omits from its ‘moral’ code. Meanwhile, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that Bush, Cheney, and Halliburton conspired on Iraq.
Oh, and let’s not forget Bill Clinton’s slight of hand, last-minute pardon of international fugitive and traitor to America Marc Rich, a true robber baron who ruined stole millions from the government and profited of human misery).
Rich was indicted for evading more than $48 million in taxes and for running illegal oil deals with Iran during the Iranian hostage crisis. Then he ran from justice. Where’s the outrage at Clinton for that from the Left? You can bet if Bush had done something as nasty and treacherous as pardoning a fugitive from justice like this, he’d have the impeachment papers drawn against him.
Rich’s ex-wife Denise, interestingly enough, gave $70,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign and $450,000 to the Clinton library. She also lobbied intensely for her ex’s pardon. Can you say “quid pro quo”? But the Left says nothing!
Cheney said that he has no financial ties to Halliburton now, even though he receives compensation from the company today. The argument goes that, since no matter what happens to Halliburton his compensation is protected, he has no interest in what happens to the company, and hence no financial interest. While this is narrowly a legal explanation, it does seem petty. My question is, so what? So what if he still has financial ties through compensation to Halliburton? No-bid contracts happen all the time; are we to assume that a no-bid only matters when Republicans are in power? Are we to punish a man for making money in this world?
Apparently, yes. While the Left can rely on the “meaning of ‘is’” as a perfectly rational argument against perjury, the mildest appearance of a conflict of interest regarding Cheney and Halliburton, which, again, is a company that presidents have used for decades on no-bid contracts (because they are good at it) constitutes damning proof—absent impeachment or indictment—that the Bush/Cheney junta “cooked up” a war with Iraq, a war based on violations that the rest of the world—for 12 years—agreed were legit.
Again, if the conspiracy is there, why not draw up the impeachment papers?
Where is the smoking gun? Where are the Left-wing definitive news articles?
I fail to see what the big deal here is. It is like me working for Oreo cookies and then, as director of a government food service, choosing Oreo over other brands. I could understand if, perhaps because it is a government deal, the Left was pissed because other companies couldn’t bid. But the Left isn’t upset about that: they are trying to express moral outrage over something that never happened except in their minds.
Conspiracy theories are the refuge of zealots, of the unhinged and irrational. Welcome to your new world, Lefties. Please don’t be shocked that no one takes you seriously—it’s only because you lack facts and logic.
A good read— http://www.nationalreview.com...
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| What the hell happened? |
| 09.26.03 (9:43 am) [edit] |
[b]Taxes: What the Hell Happened?
Here’s the list Democrats want to lengthen.[/b]
--Tom Nugent
Ten angry Democratic presidential candidates are debating over how to further increase taxes on the electorate. Here's the list they want to lengthen (courtesy of one of my conservative cohorts):
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest Expense (tax on money)
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State, and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-Recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer Registration Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
[b]Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago when our nation was the most prosperous in the wo | |
