Fire Hydrant of Freedom

1147 GMT - PHILIPPINES: Philippine troops on Aug. 8 killed militant
Abdulmukim Edris, who escaped jail July 14 with Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)
bomb-maker Fathur Rohman al Ghozi. Troops killed Edris and another man -- thought to be Mahmud Ismael, the commander of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front -- as the men attempted to cross a checkpoint in the southern province of Lanao del Norte.

US may adopt Fla. antiterror database


By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post, 8/6/2003

olice in Florida are creating a new counterterrorism database designed to give law enforcement agencies around the country a powerful new tool to analyze billions of records about both criminals and ordinary Americans.

 

Organizers said the system, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, dubbed Matrix, enables investigators to find patterns and links among people and events faster than ever before, combining police records with commercially available collections of personal information about most American adults. It would let authorities, for example, instantly find the name and address of every brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup within a 20-mile radius of a suspicious event.

The state-level program, aided by federal funding, is poised to expand across the nation at a time when Congress has been sharply critical of similar data-driven systems on the federal level, such as a Pentagon plan for global surveillance and an aviation passenger-screening system.

The Florida system is another example of the ongoing post-Sept. 11, 2001, debate about the proper balance between national security and individual privacy. Yesterday, Washington, D.C., and Homeland Security Department officials announced plans to launch a pilot law enforcement data-sharing network that will include Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Paul Cameron, president of Seisint Inc., the Boca Raton, Fla., company that developed the Matrix system and donated it to the state, said: ''It is exactly how law enforcement worked yesterday, except it's extraordinarily faster. In this age of risks that appear immediately, you have to be able to respond immediately.''

Some civil liberties groups fear Matrix will dramatically lower the threshold for government snooping.

''It's going to make fishing expeditions so much more convenient,'' said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that monitors privacy issues.

''There's going to be a push to use it for many different kinds of purposes,'' Schwartz said.

The Justice Department has provided $4 million to expand the Matrix program nationally and will provide the computer network for information-sharing among the states, according to documents and interviews. The Department of Homeland Security has pledged $8 million, state officials said.

In some ways, Matrix resembles other data-driven counterterrorism initiatives that began after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Pentagon's controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program also sought to use personal data in new ways, but on a far larger scale. Started by retired Admiral John Poindexter, the idea was to create a global data-surveillance system that might detect hints of threats. Lawmakers sharply limited the program's funding several months ago, and now some intend to shut it down.

A Justice Department document from early this year describes Matrix as an effort ''to increase and enhance the exchange of sensitive terrorism and other criminal activity information between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.''

Florida officials say the system will be used only by authorized investigators under tight supervision.

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Stratfor Weekly: The Wall of Sharon

Please feel free to send the Stratfor Weekly to a friend
or colleague.

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
4 August 2003
 
by Dr. George Friedman

The Wall of Sharon

Summary

Seeking to end the risk of Palestinian attacks, Israel is
building a barrier to separate Palestinians and Israelis. For the
wall to work, it must be more like an iron curtain than the U.S.-
Mexican border. It must be relatively impermeable: If there are
significant crossing points, militants will exploit them.
Therefore, the only meaningful strategy is to isolate Israelis
and Palestinians. That would lead to a Palestinian dependency on
Jordan that might, paradoxically, topple the Hashemite regime in
Amman. If that happens, Israel will have solved a painful
nuisance by creating the potential for a strategic nightmare.

Analysis

Israel, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is in the process of
building a wall that ultimately will separate Israelis and
Palestinians along a line roughly -- but not at all precisely --
identical to the cease-fire lines that held from 1948 until 1967.
The wall is far from complete, but the logic for it is self-
evident: It represents Israel's attempt to impose a reality that
will both satisfy the Jewish state's fundamental security needs
and the minimal political demands of the Palestinians without
requiring Palestinian agreement or acquiescence. It is an
extraordinary attempt at applied geopolitics. The question is
whether it will work.

Let's begin with the technical aspect. It is possible, with
substantial effort, to create a barrier that not only stops
large-scale population movements but seriously inhibits small-
scale movements as well. The Iron Curtain was more than a
rhetorical term: We once walked along the Austro-Hungarian
border, seeing watch towers with machine guns and search lights;
concertina wire; wide, clear-cut killing fields where
infiltrators or exfiltrators could be observed day or night using
search lights and flares, and dense mine fields. The line ran
from the Baltic to the Yugoslav border. It did work -- there was
certainly some movement across, but only at great risk and
probable failure.

The purpose of the Iron Curtain was to prevent eastern Europeans
from moving to the west and away from Soviet occupation. It was
difficult to build and maintain, but it was built and it did work
quite well. It was built with World War II technology. The
Israeli project will involve more modern sensor technology, both
human and machine. Movement will not be spotted by the luck of
the flare, but with sound sensors, ground radar and unmanned
aerial vehicles. The point is that from a technical standpoint,
if the Iron Curtain could work, this can work. The challenge is
political and military, not technical.

From the Israeli standpoint, the driving force is desperation.
Suicide attacks have achieved what Palestinian planners hoped for
-- convincing the Israelis the status quo cannot be maintained.
The bombings have convinced Israeli leaders that the continued
physical occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip are not
an option. The problem the Israelis have had to confront is that
simply retreating and abandoning the occupation might not solve
their strategic problem. From the Israeli standpoint, the problem
of the Oslo accords is that they rested on a political decision
by the Palestinians, who had to guarantee that they would abandon
further claims -- and military operations -- against the state of
Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal.

The last two years convinced Israeli leaders of two things:
First, that any guarantee from a Palestinian government was
unstable and could not be regarded as permanent; and second, that
even if the Palestinian government was able to maintain its own
commitment to an agreement, it was incapable of guaranteeing that
all Palestinian factions would honor it. Israel observed the
ability of the Irish Republican Army, ETA and other groups to
continue operations without or against state sanctions. Since the
absolute minimum concession from the Palestinians had to be the
cessation of suicide bombings and related actions against Israel,
this posed an insuperable problem. On the one hand, the status
quo was untenable; on the other, a political foundation for
withdrawal appeared to be unattainable. Israel was trapped
between two impossible realities.

For Israel, the Camp David accords with Egypt provided the basic
model for negotiations with Arabs. Camp David consisted of three
parts:

1. Egyptian recognition that Israel could not be destroyed
through military action.
2. Israeli recognition that Egypt was capable -- as in 1973 -- of
carrying out military operations that were too costly for Israel.
3. Recognition that the Sinai desert could serve not only as
Israel's strategic depth in maneuver warfare, but equally well as
a demilitarized buffer zone large enough to prevent surprise
attack.

It was on this basis that Menachem Begin, Sharon's intellectual
and strategic mentor, reached agreement with Egypt to end
hostilities -- an agreement that remains the strategic foundation
of Israel's national security policy today. The crucial piece was
that the deal did not rely on Egypt's good will: The buffer was
sufficiently large that any Egyptian violation would be quickly
noticed and could be responded to militarily. In other words,
Israel could keep control of its fate without holding Egyptian
territory.

The Oslo agreement was an attempt to apply this same principle to
the Palestinian question. It was built on the Palestinian
recognition that Palestinians could not destroy Israel
militarily, and Israeli recognition that the cost of occupation
was greater than Israel could rationally bear. What was missing -
- and always has been -- was a third step. There has been no
possibility of disengagement. From the Israeli viewpoint, this
has meant that any settlement depended on both the continued
goodwill of the Palestinian state and the absence of dissident
anti-Israeli movements. Since neither could be guaranteed, no
solution was possible.

Hence, the fence. It should be noted that the creation of a fixed
barrier violates all Israeli military thinking. The state's
military doctrine is built around the concept of mobile warfare.
Israel's concern is with having sufficient strategic depth to
engage an enemy attack and destroy it, rather than depending on a
fixed barrier. From a purely military standpoint, Israel would
view this barrier as an accident waiting to happen. The view of
barriers (such as the Suez Canal) is that they can all be
breached using appropriate, massed military force.

This is the critical point. From the Israeli standpoint, the wall
is not a military solution. It is not a Maginot Line designed to
protect against enemy main force; it is designed to achieve a
very particular, very limited and very important paramilitary
goal. It is designed to stop the infiltration of Palestinian
paramilitaries into Israel without requiring either the direct
occupation of Palestinian territory -- something that has not
worked anyway -- nor precluding the creation of a Palestinian
state. It is not the Maginot Line, it is an Iron Curtain. And
this is where the conceptual problems start to crop up.

The Iron Curtain was a fairly impermeable barrier. Nothing moved
across it except at very clearly defined and limited checkpoints.
The traffic at these checkpoints was quite low during most of the
Cold War, and there was ample opportunity for inspection and
interrogation of traffic headed in either direction. Even so,
these checkpoints were used by Western intelligence both to
penetrate Warsaw Pact countries and to extract people. There were
other points along the frontier where more informal traffic
crossed, but what never took place -- particularly after the
Berlin Wall went up -- was mass, interzonal traffic on a
continual basis.

The Iron Curtain never looked like the U.S.-Mexican border, nor
can the U.S.-Mexican border become an Iron Curtain because
neither the United States nor Mexico wants that to happen. Trade
is continual, and the movement of illegal labor from Mexico to
the United States is informally viewed by the U.S. government as
necessary. The U.S.-Mexican border is therefore a barrier to
almost nothing -- virtually everything, legal and illegal, flows
across the barrier. As much as it is disliked, the flow is
needed.

For the Israeli security model to work, economic relations
between Israel and Palestine will have to be ruptured. The idea
of controlled movement of large numbers of workers, trucks and so
on across the border is incompatible with the idea of the fence
as a security barrier. Once movement is permitted, movement is
permitted. Along with that movement will come guerrillas, weapons
and whatever anyone wants to send across. You cannot be a little
bit pregnant on this: Either Israel seals its frontier, or the
fence is a waste of steel and manpower. If the wall is not
continual and impermeable, it may as well not be there.

The geopolitical idea underlying the fence is that that it will
not be permeable. If this goal is achieved, regardless of where
the final line of the fence will be, then economic and social
relations between Israel and Palestine will cease to exist except
through third-party transit. Forgetting the question of Jerusalem
-- for if Jerusalem is an open city, the fence may as well not be
built -- this poses a huge strategic challenge.

Palestinians historically have depended on Israel economically.
If Israel closes off its frontiers, the only contiguous economic
relationship will be with Jordan. In effect, Palestine would
become a Jordanian dependency. However, it will not be clear over
time which is the dog and which is the tail. Jordan already has a
large Palestinian population that has, in the past, threatened
the survival of the Hashemite Bedouin regime. By sealing off
Palestinian and Israeli territories, the Israelis would slam
Palestine and Jordan together. Over the not-so-long term, this
could mean the end of Hashemite Jordan and the creation of a
single Palestinian state on both sides of the Jordan River.

There are Israelis -- including Sharon, in our view -- who would
not object to this outcome. They have argued that the Hashemite
presence in Amman has long distorted the reality in the region.
The Hashemite regime was installed by Britain after World War I.
In the opinion of some Israelis, Jordan ought to be the real
Palestine. Therefore, if the fence results in the fall of the
Jordanian monarchy and the creation of a unitary Palestinian
state, these Israelis would find this a positive development.
Indeed, one argument goes that a Jordan with boundaries roughly
analogous to pre-1967 lines would undermine Palestinian radical
movements by creating a more stable, less aggressive Palestinian
nation-state.

Two other scenarios exist. In one, the Hashemites survive and
drive many of the Palestinians on the east bank of the Jordan
into the West Bank; the Israelis maintain their cordon sanitaire
and the Palestinian nation-state becomes an untenable disaster --
trapped between two enemies, Israel and Jordan. Israel would not
object to this, but the problem is that the level of desperation
achieved in Palestine might prove so chaotic that it either would
threaten Israeli national security or set into motion processes
in the Arab world -- and among Israel's Western allies -- that
would increase pressure on Israel. In other words, the Israelis
would wind up strategically where they started, with the non-
trivial exception of fewer or no suicide bombings.

The other scenario is that the Palestinians do merge with Jordan,
but -- given the dynamics of the Arab and Islamic worlds -- the
new nation-state does not moderate but instead generates, with
assistance from other Arabs, a major military strike force for
whom the fence represents at most a minor tactical barrier rather
than a strategic force. Under this scenario, the consequences
would be a return to the strategic situation of 1948-1967 (except
for Egypt's participation), with a potentially more powerful
enemy to the east. If Egypt were to change its policies, the
outcome could be strategically disastrous for Israel.

The problem with the fence, therefore, is this:

1. If it is to be effective as a barrier, it must be nearly
absolute; large-scale movement cannot be permitted.
2. If a Palestinian state is isolated, it would develop a
dependency on Jordan that could topple the Hashemite regime,
creating a potential strategic threat to Israel.

The fence strategy works only if the Palestinian-Jordanian
relationship yields a politically moderate Palestinian state.
That might happen, but there is no reason to be certain that it
will. The essential purpose of the fence is to give Israel
control of its security. The problem is that Israel can control
the construction of the fence, but not the evolution of events
after the fence is built. At some point in the process, Israel
becomes dependent on the actions of others.

This is Israel's core strategic dilemma. At some point, no matter
what it does, it becomes dependent on events that are not under
its control. In some scenarios, solving the problem of suicide
bombings leads into a massive deterioration of Israel's strategic
position. Israeli leaders obviously want to avoid that, but the
fence pushes out the strategic problem and paradoxically
intensifies it, rather than solving it. Israeli security
continues to depend on the decisions of the Palestinians. The
fence is an attempt to take control of Israel's future out of
Palestinian hands and place it securely in Israeli hands, but the
fact is that what the Palestinians do will continue to affect
Israel's security.

As is frequently the case in this world, Israel does not have
good choices. It has to make some bad ones work.
...................................................................

CLIFTON, N.J.  ? A 15-year-old boy foiled an apparent abduction attempt when he pulled out his cell phone camera and snapped photos of a man trying to lure him into a car, police said.

The teen also photographed the vehicle's license plate and gave the evidence to police, who arrested a suspect the next day.

"It's surprising the kid had the presence of mind to use the technology under duress," Detective Capt. Robert Rowan told The Record of Bergen County (search) in Friday's editions.

The teen, whose name was not released by police, was walking home at about 7 p.m. Tuesday when a man, later identified by police as William MacDonald, pulled up beside him, Rowan said.

He offered to drive the boy to another town to look for girls, and then began "engaging in a sexually explicit conversation," Rowan said. The teen told him he wasn't interested, but MacDonald, 59, continued to follow him.

At that point, the boy took the pictures, and MacDonald got out of his car and grabbed him by the arm, Rowan said. A struggle followed, but the boy was able to break free and run away.

MacDonald was charged with attempting to lure a juvenile into a car, criminal restraint and simple assault. If convicted, he could face up to five years in state prison. He is being held on $25,000 bail.

A spokeswoman for Sprint (search), whose phone the boy used, said she had never heard of someone using the new technology to catch a criminal.

1154 GMT - PHILIPPINES: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has warned that even though the July 27 coup participants have been arrested and charge in the rebellion, a larger threat remains against the government. Since the coup, Arroyo has given authorities expanded powers that include the ability to arrest people without a warrant. Those powers will remain in effect until the situation is brought under control and the threat of future coup plots is removed, Arroyo said.

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1154 GMT - PHILIPPINES: The Moro Islamic Front (MILF) admits it bought guns from the Philippine military, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told AFP. However, Eid denied that the military supports the militant group works, noting that the guns most likely were purchased from individual soldiers. Philippine soldiers who attempted to overthrow the government on July 26 had accused the government of working with the militant group, as well as attacking Philippine citizens and blaming it on the MILF. The government has denied those charges.


1108 GMT - PHILIPPINES: The head of Philippine military intelligence, Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus, resigned July 30, citing "deep restiveness" inside the officers corp. His resignation was one of the demands made by renegade soldiers who attempted to overthrow the government on July 26. However, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez denied there was a link between the demand and Corpus' resignation, noting that Corpus had been thinking about stepping down for more than a month.

1150 GMT - PHILIPPINES: Four suspected leaders of the July 27 coup attempt in the Philippines were trained by U.S. Special Forces, AFP reported July 29, citing an unnamed Philippine military official. The four leaders -- Capt. Gerardo Gambala of the 32nd Infantry Battalion, 1st Lt. Laurence San Juan of the Light Reaction Company and Capt. Albert Baloloy and 1st Lt. Jose Enrico Demetrio Dingle of the Scout Ranger Battalion -- received sniper, night fighting and counterterrorism training in 2002 and later fought against elements of Abu Sayyaf on Basilan Island.

"It doesn't get any better (worse?) than this.

"Jessie Jackson has added former Chicago democratic congressman Mel Reynolds to Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's payroll. Reynolds was among the 176 criminals excused in President Clinton's last-minute forgiveness spree.

"Reynolds received a commutation of his six-and-a-half-year federal sentence for 15 convictions of wire fraud, bank fraud and lies to the Federal Election Commission. He is more notorious, however, for concurrently serving five years for sleeping with an underage campaign volunteer.

This is a first in American politics: an ex-congressman who had sex with a subordinate... won clemency from a president who had sex with a subordinate... then was hired by a clergyman who had sex with a subordinate.

"His new job?

"Youth counselor!!!

Islamic Militant Admits to Plot, Report Says
Suspect with Jemaah Islamiah ties told police he and an Egyptian were planning Manila attack.
       
By Richard C. Paddock, Times Staff Writer


MANILA ? A notorious Islamic militant arrested in May has confessed to police that he plotted to attack the Philippine presidential palace using Arab suicide bombers, according to a confidential police report of his interrogation.

Muklis Yunos, a suspect with links to Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian terrorist network, said he was on his way to Manila to prepare for the attacks when he was arrested with a co-conspirator, an Egyptian businessman, according to a copy of the Philippine police report obtained by The Times.

It was unclear whether Yunos and his associates had the capability and resources to pull off such an attack. One Philippine police investigator speculated that the plan was concocted as part of a successful counter-terrorism scheme to lure Yunos out of hiding and arrest him.

Details of the alleged bomb plot emerged as Southeast Asian authorities grapple with mounting activity by suspected terrorists.

In Indonesia this month, police arrested nine suspected Jemaah Islamiah members and seized weapons and enough explosives to make a device more powerful than the car bomb used in the October 2002 attack on a nightclub in Bali, which killed 202 people. Police said the group planned to blow up churches and assassinate five prominent Indonesians.

Jemaah Islamiah, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in the region, scored a significant victory when Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi, one of its most prominent members, managed to escape from prison in Manila this month. Also known as "Mike the Bombmaker," the Indonesian terrorist allegedly took part in bomb plots in Manila, Jakarta and Singapore before his arrest last year.

Authorities say Al Ghozi and two members of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang walked out of their cell at police headquarters in Manila during the middle of the night July 14. Authorities are investigating whether guards were bribed.

Following Al Ghozi's escape, the U.S. and other Western nations issued new warnings of terrorist threats in the Philippines.


------------------
Philippine Troops Surrender Peacefully in Mall Standoff
About 300 mutinous soldiers leave Manila's financial district for their bases after their attempt to oust the president fails.

  By Richard C. Paddock, Times Staff Writer


MANILA ? About 300 rebellious soldiers who had seized a shopping complex and rigged it with explosives in the hope of ousting Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo surrendered Sunday night, ending their siege less than 24 hours after it began.

Arroyo, who had authorized troops to use deadly force if necessary to drive the mutineers from Manila's financial district, was jubilant when she announced that negotiations had ended the standoff.

"The crisis is over," she declared at 10 p.m. "This has been a triumph for democracy."

Under the agreement, the rebels were allowed to keep their weapons and were transported back to their bases, not jail. Most looked tired and grim as they filed from the building and climbed into waiting trucks, but several said the protest was worthwhile because it gave them a chance to air grievances against the government.

"We were able to express ourselves," said a 27-year-old soldier who declined to give his name. "We will always be proud of that."

The renegades accused the Arroyo administration of selling guns and ammunition to Islamic rebels and guerrilla fighters, saying that the weapons are used to kill Philippine soldiers. The mutineers also accused the government of masterminding recent terrorist bombings in the southern Philippines to obtain more aid money from the United States and to provide a pretext for declaring martial law, so that Arroyo could remain in power.

With low ratings in the polls, Arroyo has said she does not plan to run in an election scheduled for next year.

The soldiers offered no proof of their allegations but called Arroyo a terrorist and demanded that she and her top military and police officials quit.

"We demand the resignation of our leaders in the present regime," the renegades said in a protest statement. "We are willing to sacrifice our lives today to pursue a program not tainted with politicking."

In an earlier televised speech Sunday, Arroyo rejected the soldiers' allegations and suggested that the mutineers were the ones engaging in terrorism when they set booby traps in the shopping mall.

"There is absolutely no justification for the actions you have taken," Arroyo told the soldiers in her address. "You have already stained the uniform. Do not drench it with dishonor. Your actions are already hovering at the fringes of outright terrorism."

The mutineers contended that they were not attempting to stage a coup. However, the protest might have gained popular support and drawn large crowds similar to the "people power" rebellions that installed Corazon Aquino as president in 1986 and Arroyo as president in 2001.

Police today arrested an aide of disgraced former President Joseph Estrada, whom Arroyo replaced, for alleged involvement in the mutiny. Police said Ramon Cardenas owned a house near Manila where officers found assault rifles, ammunition and red armbands similar to those used by the soldiers.

Having learned from her own rise to power, Arroyo had made sure that few members of the public could reach the Glorietta mall and the adjoining Oakwood Premier Hotel where the soldiers were holed up: Police had blockaded the roads.

The district, known as Makati City, is the commercial hub of Manila, with high-rise office buildings and five-star hotels.

In the afternoon, the president declared a "state of rebellion," giving the military and police the legal authority to arrest suspects without warrants. Arroyo set a deadline of 5 p.m. for her troops to move in but extended the deadline twice.

Under the final agreement, five leaders of the mutiny will face prosecution.

After the deal was struck, mutineers dismantled the explosives they had placed around the shopping center.

-------------------
Filipino Cops Arrest Ex-Aide in Uprising
 
By JIM GOMEZ, Associated Press Writer


MANILA, Philippines -- A key supporter of disgraced ex-President Joseph Estrada was arrested Monday and accused of supporting a failed military mutiny over the weekend, while the current Philippine leader ordered an independent probe into the causes of the uprising by junior officers.

Police have alleged that several cronies of Estrada, who was ousted by popular protest in 2001 and is standing trial on corruption charges, aided and fomented Sunday's rebellion.

Nearly 300 mutinous troops who seized a Manila shopping and apartment complex demanding the government resign gave up and retreated peacefully after some 19 hours.

Estrada, who has been in police custody for more than two years, insisted that he had nothing to do with Sunday's drama. "Neither I nor my supporters has a role in this whole thing, and personally, I have nothing to gain from this incident," he said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo vowed Monday to punish the plotters and ordered an investigation into what caused the uprising that shook her presidency.

In a state of the nation address, Arroyo assured the country that she remains in control. The mutineers said they were protesting alleged corruption and misconduct within the military.

"I am constituting an independent commission to investigate the roots of the mutiny and the provocation that inspired it," she told the Congress, which responded with a standing ovation.

"Such actions are deplorable and will be met with the full force of law," she added.

Arroyo traveled to Congress aboard a helicopter and about 3,000 police officers and sharpshooters deployed outside the Congress building for her speech on Monday.

Outside, thousands of protesters called for her resignation, saying Arroyo had failed to give land to poor farmers, control graft and ease poverty.

"The people's call for Arroyo's resignation will continue to escalate, especially after the mutiny by young officers and soldiers," labor leader Elmer Labog said.

Protesters also burned a 12-foot effigy of Arroyo with moving legs, symbolizing the president on the run.

The Philippines has had about eight military uprisings and coup attempts since the "people power" ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

The force of Arroyo's words immediately fueled speculation that she might reverse an earlier promise not to stand in next year's presidential election.

Arroyo did not mention her political plans but pledged action to solve critical problems including terrorism, drugs, corruption, separatism and the struggling economy.

Police announced earlier Monday that they were using emergency powers granted by Arroyo to quell the mutiny to detain some of Estrada's associates. The powers allow arrests without warrants.

The first to be nabbed was Ramon Cardenas, a member of Estrada's Cabinet. Officials filed a complaint against him late Monday before the justice department in connection with his alleged role in the uprising. A lawyer for Cardenas, Abraham Expejo, said his client was innocent.

Officers said he owned a "safe house" for the rebel troops -- stacked with assault rifles, ammunition and the same red armbands used by the soldiers who seized an apartment and ritzy shopping complex in downtown Manila.

Police are trying to gather evidence against Sen. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, also suspected of providing help to the mutineers, said police official Eduardo Matillano. Honasan, a former army colonel who led seven coup attempts in the 1980s, has not been charged and has strongly denied the accusation.

Arroyo also promised to reform the police force, branded as corrupt and inept following the July 14 escape of three terror suspects thought to have bribed their way out of its main Manila headquarters.

Arroyo, however, failed to outline a widely expected change of senior police commanders -- something that had been included in a draft of her speech supplied to reporters. There was no explanation about the omission.

Financial markets plunged Monday in response to the failed mutiny, but major shares bottomed out early and contained their losses at 2.1 percent as traders focused on the quick, peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Five junior officers, who organized the uprising, were being questioned under guard, said army spokesman Lt. Col. Joselito Kakilala. The other mutinous troops were confined to their barracks.

The mutineers demanded the resignation of Arroyo, but backed down during talks with government negotiators and after Arroyo threatened to crush the rebellion with tanks and sharpshooters.

The renegades wired the apartment and shopping complex -- home to some of the city's richest citizens, foreign businesspeople and diplomats -- with explosives and booby traps.

The renegades complained of corruption and misconduct in the upper ranks of the military and government and complained that Muslim and communist rebels were buying weapons and ammunition from the military.

EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, he and roughly 50 heavily armed members of the Philippine military seized a commercial complex in Manila?s financial district and rigged the place with explosives, swearing to blow it up if they were attacked. At least two unnamed Americans were reported to be trapped inside, although members of the mutiny insisted they were holding no hostages. Government troops surrounded the complex but kept their distance.
 
       The uprising included several Special Operations officers who had earned decorations in the three-decade war against Muslim rebels in the south. The mutinous troops issued a statement complaining of favoritism and corruption. ?We demand the resignation of our leaders in the present regime,? it said. ?We are willing to sacrifice our lives today to pursue a program not tainted with politicking.? Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero said that the siege was not seen as a threat to power, and that the Manila government hoped for a peaceful resolution. Shortly afterward, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave the soldiers seven hours to return to their barracks or face ?reasonable force.?
       
       ? 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

Thailand's Thaksin Maneuvering for Top ASEAN Position?

Summary

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has formulated a plan not
only to secure the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
but also eventually to democratize Myanmar, Thai Foreign Minister
Surakiart Sathirathai said at a foreign ministers' summit on July
24. Thaksin's campaign to rehabilitate Myanmar is motivated by a
desire not only to remove a thorn in the side of ASEAN -- and
facilitate his ascension to its leadership -- but also to secure
the benefits a peaceful and prosperous Myanmar would bring to
Thailand.

Analysis

Thailand has forged a proposal to secure the release of
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and possibly even democratize
Myanmar, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said July 24
at a summit in Indonesia.

Bangkok has a multidimensional interest in resolving Myanmar's
issues: Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is motivated not only
by a desire to remove a thorn from the side of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations -- hoping to position himself to take
over the ASEAN leadership -- but also to secure the benefits a
peaceful and prosperous Myanmar would bring to his country.

Myanmar's ruling military junta took Suu Kyi into "protective
custody" on May 30. The opposition leader's detainment has
spawned condemnations from Europe, the United States and fellow
Asian nations. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad even
floated the idea of expelling Myanmar from ASEAN if it did not
respond to the mounting international concerns -- a sharp
divergence from the association's policy of noninterference in
its members' internal affairs. At the time Thaksin rebutted
Mahathir's suggestion, urging the international community to give
Myanmar time to resolve its own national issues.

Bangkok changed its tune, however, at the Asia Europe Meeting
(ASEM) in Bali on July 24. Sathirathai said that Thailand's peace
plan for Myanmar seeks the cooperation of six "like-minded"
countries and all interested internal parties. However,
Sathirathai neither addressed when the plan would be implemented
nor specified the names of the "like-minded" countries.

Foreign ministers who attended the ASEM said they would not
support a policy that would remove Myanmar from ASEAN.

Thaksin and Mahathir reportedly will discuss the Myanmar crisis
during upcoming talks on Langkawi Island in Malaysia on July 26
and 27. Thaksin also reportedly plans to meet with U.N. Envoy to
Myanmar Tan Sri Razali Ismail, who is the only outsider reported
to have met with Suu Kyi during her incarceration.

On the heals of Thaksin's high-level meeting in Malaysia is
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung's scheduled visit to Bangkok
for economic talks on July 31. At this point, it still is
ambiguous whether his visit is part of the Thai peace plan, which
Sathirathai called a "road map."

Judging by the Thai foreign minister's ambitious announcement,
and the forthcoming diplomatic traffic, it appears that Thaksin
has cut a deal with Yangon -- or at least is trying his utmost to
do so. If the Thai prime minister can actually deliver what he is
offering -- Suu Kyi's release and a democratized Myanmar -- it
would be a major political victory for Thaksin, both at home and
abroad.

Thaksin fancies the retiring Mahathir's position as the chief
ideologue and voice of ASEAN. Rehabilitating Myanmar, the
multinational body's sole rogue member, would guarantee a large
amount of political capital and help Thaksin's ascension to the
coveted position.

It still remains to be seen how Mahathir -- who plans to retire
in October -- feels about Thaksin's designs. Deputy Prime
Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is slated to take over Malaysia's
leadership, and Mahathir might be trying to position him as
regional leader as well. However, compared to Thaksin -- a self-
made billionaire and popular leader responsible for turning
around Thailand's economy in the wake of the Asian financial
crisis -- Badawi seems a less fitting candidate. Mahathir knows
this, and might decide to endorse Thaksin and help unify ASEAN --
a body he helped create -- behind a strong leader.

The Thai prime minister's campaign in Myanmar also would have
long-term domestic benefits. Thailand's western neighbor is host
to a number of rebel insurgencies and has been a source of
instability for Thailand for decades. The shared border is one of
Thailand's chief security concerns. Thaksin would like to do what
he can to pacify Myanmar and encourage economic growth both in
his neighbor and in northwestern Thailand, which suffers from its
proximity to the state. Since his election in 2001, Thaksin has
promised repeatedly to improve bilateral relations, which
remained stagnant during previous administrations. Thaksin also
might have enticed Yangon with economic aid, a gift that could be
mutually beneficial. If Myanmar's meager economy were to take a
positive upswing, there likely would be opportunities for Thai
businesses to help improve the country's paltry infrastructure.

It is conceivable that Thaksin quietly has offered some sort of
economic incentive to Yangon in exchange for Suu Kyi's release
and a minimal amount of political reform. As Myanmar's largest
consumer of its natural gas resources -- its major legitimate
source of foreign currency -- Bangkok certainly has some economic
leverage on its neighbor.

Item Number:14
Date: 07/25/2003
PHILIPPINES - ARROYO MOVES TROOPS TO MANILA (JUL 25/AFP)

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE -- Hundreds of elite Philippine soldiers were
deployed to Manila to increase security in the capital, amid reports
of restiveness in the military.  President Gloria Arroyo said that difficulties with military had been resolved and denied the army was plotting a coup against her, reports Agence France-Presse.

"There has been some understandable restiveness, but I have resolved
this matter directly with the troops," said Arroyo.

Woof Logan:

  I think I understand your meaning.  

  What can you tell us about the Swiss approach to all of this?

Woof,
Crafty Dog

Philippine police on Monday intercepted a container truck loaded with six
tons of sodium nitrate explosives. The explosives are believed to be part of a plan to attack targets in Manila and other urban areas in the country. The Philippine government recently signed a cease-fire agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Muslim separatist group from Mindanao, ahead of peace talks. Though this is more likely the work of the al Qaeda-aligned Abu Sayyaf group, a campaign of bombings by Muslim extremists throughout the Philippines would do nothing to advance peace talks with the MILF.

www.stratfor.com

Geopolitical Diary: Monday, July 21, 2003

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in action over the weekend -- including two
members of the 101st Airborne Division who were killed in an ambush west of Mosul that left another soldier injured. Sunday's ambush occurred near Tall Afar. The interesting thing about these attacks is that both took place outside the "Sunni Triangle" north and west of Baghdad, where attacks have been focused. The guerrillas appear to be expanding their operations deliberately, trying to unnerve U.S. troops and force their commanders to expand the combat arena -- and thereby stretch their resources even more. What is unclear is whether these were special operations at long distances by the Iraqis, or whether they indicated a sustained move into these regions -- and the answers to these questions will be critical.

U.S. officials have decided to raise an Iraqi army, designated as an Iraqi
"civil defense corps." Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said the
force "will be made up of Iraqis who will be under American military command to help us basically with the armed part of the work we're doing." If they do nothing but help interpret both language and culture to the American troops, they will be beneficial. If they are not expected to engage in combat operations on their own, they can be spun up fairly rapidly."

The corps poses two challenges. The first is finding anyone willing to serve in it. There will be two classes of people volunteering: One class consists of criminals and down-and-outers who see a chance to come out on top in the new Iraqi order, with not much to lose if it fails; then there will be the people that Bremer wants: people rooted in the community with families -- people who in addition to serving in the force can also influence their communities. This is not an impossible idea by any means, but it does depend on one thing: being able to protect their families. The men will be safer on patrol with U.S. forces, but their families will not. If the United States can't protect them, the whole project fails. And protecting the families of troops always has been one of the nightmares of guerrilla warfare.

The second problem will be security. This force will be a treasure trove of
intelligence for the Baathists. If we were Baath commanders, our men would be standing in line to join up. Getting close up and personal with U.S. troops would provide tactical and operational intelligence. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong made it a point to place people in the Army of Vietnam (ARVN) slots where liaison with the Americans was heavy. It is unclear how you do a background check in Iraq, and we'd love to see the polygraphs. Keeping the force clean is going to be a nightmare -- that is, if Bremer plans to put up recruitment posters all over the country to create a force that "looks like Iraq," in former U.S. President Bill Clinton's old phrase. If, on the other hand, the bulk of the forces are to be raised from the Shiite regions -- where deals are being made -- and from the Kurdish regions, the security concerns might be less. Of course, the Kurds will engage in smuggling and the Shiites will report to Tehran, but they will be motivated to stop the Baath guerrillas, which is the item on the agenda.

If this is the case, then what is happening is that the United States will
recruit non-Sunni forces to share the burden of occupying the Sunni regions. As we have argued in the past, this is the only way to do it. It does not create a pro-American faction inside the Sunni regions, but it does increase the force available to engage and defeat the Baathists. Both the Kurds and Shiites have the interest to carry out the mission, but both will have to be induced to do so with political arrangements. In the case of the Shiites, those arrangements will be costly.

Since the idea of a general recruitment from the population strikes us as
self-defeating, we suspect that this proposal is the cover for the creation
of a combined U.S.-Shiite force for occupying Sunni areas. Whether we are right in this will be visible when the recruitment starts. Pay no attention to the first media reports on this, which will be staged carefully to show the diversity and motivation of the force. After the cameras leave, we will take a careful look at the force and see how many of their families live in the "Sunni Triangle."

www.Strafor.com

Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, July 17, 2003

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said July 16 that the United States is facing "what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It's a low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it's war however you describe it." He also said, "We're seeing a cellular organization of six to eight people armed with (rocket-propelled grenades), machine guns, etc., attacking us at some times and places of their choosing, and other times we attack them at times and places of our choosing."

This statement is an extremely significant event. Washington has been in a state of denial as to what is happening in Iraq, with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld leading the charge to pretend that the obvious wasn't happening. Even if he knew privately what was going on --which we certainly would expect -- the public presentation reminded us of Baghdad Bob in his heyday. That, coupled with the obsession about forged letters and WMD, created a sense both at home and among troops in Iraq that the National Command Authority had lost track of reality in Iraq. Abizaid's statement tells us two things: First, he intends to wage a military campaign in Iraq, and second, he will define the reality in Iraq regardless of what the situation is in Washington.

This comes at a critical moment. U.S. newspapers were filled with reports on Wednesday of declining U.S. morale in Iraq. The decisions to delay the
return of forces to the United States obviously hit hard, as can be
imagined. The letdown from having been told that the war was won -- only to discover that it is just beginning -- also hit. But nothing frightens a
soldier more than the sense that the situation is out of control, no one is
in charge and no plans for waging war are in place. For more than two
months, U.S. forces have been involved in a guerrilla war with daily action, only to have Rumsfeld trivialize the problem -- that has to hurt.

How serious the war has become was driven home Wednesday when a
surface-to-air missile was fired at a C-130 near Baghdad International
Airport. It is not surprising that the guerrillas have surface-to-air
missiles; they had access to all weapons in the Iraqi arsenal, and weapons obviously were stored in anticipation of the war. C-130 pilots had been practicing evasion techniques for a while, executing maneuvers on approach and takeoff and occasionally dispensing flares designed to confuse infrared-guided missiles. Abizaid commented that a C-130 on which he was a passenger had executed such maneuvers. Obviously, commanders in Iraq are aware of the potential threats.

On the other hand, the attack failed. Indeed, the day of violence that was
predicted for July 16 did not occur -- or more precisely, the level of
violence did not rise above what has become normal, save for the attempt to bring down the plane. The questions raised by the C-130 incident are these: How many more missiles are in the Baathist arsenal, what other weapons are there, and how secure are the arms caches?

In the end, Abizaid's concession that there is a war on leads to the
question: What is the war plan? As we have noted in the past, suppressing
guerrilla forces with conventional forces is not an easy task. The
guerrillas clearly are embedded in the Sunni population. They are not
operating in isolated areas covered by terrain. This is urban and near-urban guerrilla warfare, reminiscent of the Battle of Algiers in the 1950s. It should be noted that the French won that battle, suppressing insurgent
forces in the city. They won through intense ruthlessness, coupled with a
large, friendly French population and an Arab population that was divided.
The French knew the city and had allies. It should be noted that in the end, they lost the war -- but they did win that battle.

The key problems in Iraq are that the United States does not have a large
American population on the ground, the troops don't know the terrain very well and, at the moment, U.S. allies among the Sunni community are few and under heavy American guard. Abizaid's strategy is not yet clear. Flailing away in search-and-seize missions based on poor intelligence is hardly the solution. Good intelligence is the solution, and that requires allies on the ground -- either to provide intelligence or to bear the burden of fighting or both.

Here is the problem now: Guerrilla war is political war, and it is not clear
that CINCENT (as we still call him) has the authority to make political
decisions, concerning alliances and so on. That seems to be in the hands of Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and it is not clear how much strategic authority he has. This leads us to recall Saigon, where the
ambassador sometimes had one policy, the military another and the CIA a third -- it sort of didn't work. Unified command in a guerrilla war requires more than just military authority. Either Abizaid and Bremer have to be joined at the hip, or one of them has to have undisputed command authority. Right now, the issue is how much authority either of the leaders has to make the radical decisions that will be needed to fight a guerrilla war.

Today's Featured Analysis

Iraqi Governing Council: A Window of Opportunity for the U.S.?

Summary

The United States has always clearly opposed the possibility of a
theocratic state in postwar Iraq. Now the U.S. administration has
crafted a new 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which includes
seven Islamists. It appears Washington is trying to craft an
Islamic democracy that could be used as a future model for the
Arab Middle East and possibly for the larger Muslim world.

Analysis

The United States has brought together Iraq's various political
forces -- with the exception of the Baath Party -- under the
banner of the new 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. The U.S.
interim administration crafted the body, which involves 25
individuals who are representative of most of the country's
various religious and ethnic groups.

The council's composition suggests that the United States is
trying to strike a balance between imposing a Western-style
democracy and thwarting the emergence of an Iranian-style
theocratic state in Iraq. If the U.S. administrators pull it off,
it could result in the emergence of an Islamic democracy that
could be used as a model for future governments in the region. It
will require careful calibration, however, to move from theory to
reality.

The ethnic, ideological and religious mix in the IGC highlights
the diversity that is the hallmark of Iraq, a nation-state
created by Britain 1921, following the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire.

The IGC has 25 members, but a few of them warrant individual
mention. Prominent among this group is Ahmed Chalabi, of the
Pentagon-supported Iraqi National Congress. There are familiar
faces also from Iraq's Kurdish groups: Massoud Barzani of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party; Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan; Salaheddine Bahaaeddin, leader of the Kurdistan
Islamic Union; and Mahmoud Othman, founder and leader of the
Kurdish Socialist Party. Hamid Majid Mousa represents the Iraqi
Communist Party; he has been its secretary since 1993.

Two members from the Shia Islamist Dawa Party also are among the
group: Dawa leader Ezzedine Salim and spokesman Ibrahim al-
Jaafari. Abdel-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi represents Iraqi
Hezbollah.

Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum, widely regarded as a liberal Shia, is
the only cleric on the council. Mohsen Abdel Hamid, secretary-
general of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, represents Sunnis.
Abdel-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi represents Iraqi Hezbollah.

In a sense, the U.S. administration has retained a member of the
old regime: Aquila al-Hashimi, a woman, was a Foreign Ministry
official and diplomat under Saddam Hussein. There are two other
women on the council: Raja Habib al-Khuzaai, a southern tribal
Shia leader; and Sondul Chapouk, representing the Turkmen
minority.

Iran also appears to have a say in the council. Abdel-Aziz al-
Hakim is the brother of Iranian-backed SCIRI leader Ayatollah
Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim. In all, 13 of the 25 members are Shia
Arabs -- which likely is an acknowledgement of Iraq's Shia
majority. The council also has five Sunni Arabs, five Sunni
Kurds, one Christian Arab and one Turkman.

The presence of seven Islamists on the council is consistent with
U.S. President George W. Bush's stated desire for the
establishment of an "Islamic democracy" in Iraq. Likely toward
this end, Bush appointed New York University law professor Noah
Feldman to head the committee and oversee the drafting of Iraq's
new constitution. Feldman has a doctorate in Islamic thought from
Oxford and wrote After Jihad: America and the Struggle for an
Islamic Democracy, published in 2003.

Following mounting resistance from militant Islamic clerics and
Arab nationalists -- and the ever-present threat of Iranian
interference -- Bush said April 24 that he was determined to see
an "Islamic democracy" built in Iraq. In other words, this was
the compromise the United States was willing to make in order to
avoid being seen as disregarding the Islamic sensibilities of the
Iraqi people, some of whom openly have called for an Islamic
state. The Bush administration's goal is for the government in
Baghdad not to threaten U.S. interests, nor to facilitate any
non-state actors who would wish to do so. Washington apparently
views the establishment of an Islamic democracy in Iraq as a
potential way of ensuring these goals.

The problem is that neither the United States nor the Iraqi
people have a model of Islamic democracy to emulate. Turkey and
Iran perhaps could be categorized as Islamic democracies-in-the-
making, but they won't get there anytime soon. Both appear to be
slowly moving toward some form of Islamic democracy -- albeit
from opposite directions.

If the task at hand in Iraq is to be accomplished, it will
require careful calibration on Washington's part. For the U.S.
administration, it will be important to show support for the
project without inadvertently discrediting ICG members,
especially the moderate Islamists, in the eyes of their domestic
audience. If the masses view the council as being a group of U.S.
lackeys, it will quickly lose the respect of the Iraqis, not to
mention the entire Arab world.

However, if the United States is able to strike this delicate
balance, it could have far-reaching consequences in terms of
redeeming the U.S. image in the Muslim world. An Islamic
democracy in Iraq might even be able to help stem the tide of
radical and militant forms of Islam.

Stratfor has argued that the war against Iraq was only part of a
campaign in the larger war on terrorism. The United States has
tried to avoid associating the war on terrorism with Islam, but
these efforts have proved futile. Recent Gallup, Pew Trust and
other polls suggest that an overwhelming majority of Muslims do
not trust U.S. foreign policy when it comes to their part of the
world.

In the case of Iraq, there is a widespread impression that the
United States effected regime change in order to secure its
energy interests. The new Iraqi council provides a window of
opportunity for the United States to practice damage control by
trying to transfer power to an elected Iraqi government -- but
that requires security. Daily attacks on U.S. forces offset the
possibility of a quick transfer of power.

The IGC is bound to face a crisis of legitimacy, since it is a
U.S.-appointed, not elected, body. In a sense, there is a window
of opportunity here for Washington to make great strides in its
broader war. A successful Islamic democracy in Iraq not only
would stabilize that country, but eventually could break support
for militant Islam on a global scale, and perhaps pave the way
for democratization in the greater Islamic world. This, however,
will acquire a great deal of effort and statesmanship from the
Bush administration.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030710.html

Tuhon Bill McGrath found this interesting piece.

7/25:  I've renamed this thread so that it may serve as the vehicle for related posts

Crafty Dog
-----------------------


Raging Against Self Defense
 
Permission is granted to distribute this article in its entirety, so long as full copyright information and full contact information is given for JPFO.
Copyright ? 2000 Sarah Thompson, MD
Published by
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
www.jpfo.org



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Raging Against Self Defense:
A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality
By Sarah Thompson, M.D.
righter@therighter.com


"You don't need to have a gun; the police will protect you."

"If people carry guns, there will be murders over parking spaces and neighborhood basketball games."

"I'm a pacifist. Enlightened, spiritually aware people shouldn't own guns."

"I'd rather be raped than have some redneck militia type try to rescue me."
How often have you heard these statements from misguided advocates of victim disarmament, or even woefully uninformed relatives and neighbors? Why do people cling so tightly to these beliefs, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that they are wrong? Why do they get so furiously angry when gun owners point out that their arguments are factually and logically incorrect?

How can you communicate with these people who seem to be out of touch with reality and rational thought?

One approach to help you deal with anti-gun people is to understand their psychological processes. Once you understand why these people behave so irrationally, you can communicate more effectively with them.


Defense Mechanisms
Projection

About a year ago I received an e-mail from a member of a local Jewish organization. The author, who chose to remain anonymous, insisted that people have no right to carry firearms because he didn't want to be murdered if one of his neighbors had a "bad day". (I don't know that this person is a "he", but I'm assuming so for the sake of simplicity.) I responded by asking him why he thought his neighbors wanted to murder him, and, of course, got no response. The truth is that he's statistically more likely to be murdered by a neighbor who doesn't legally carry a firearm1 and more likely to be shot accidentally by a law enforcement officer.1

How does my correspondent "know" that his neighbors would murder him if they had guns? He doesn't. What he was really saying was that if he had a gun, he might murder his neighbors if he had a bad day, or if they took his parking space, or played their stereos too loud. This is an example of what mental health professionals call projection ? unconsciously projecting one's own unacceptable feelings onto other people, so that one doesn't have to own them.3 In some cases, the intolerable feelings are projected not onto a person, but onto an inanimate object, such as a gun,4 so that the projector believes the gun itself will murder him.

Projection is a defense mechanism. Defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological mechanisms that protect us from feelings that we cannot consciously accept.5 They operate without our awareness, so that we don't have to deal consciously with "forbidden" feelings and impulses. Thus, if you asked my e-mail correspondent if he really wanted to murder his neighbors, he would vehemently deny it, and insist that other people want to kill him.

Projection is a particularly insidious defense mechanism, because it not only prevents a person from dealing with his own feelings, it also creates a world where he perceives everyone else as directing his own hostile feelings back at him.6

All people have violent, and even homicidal, impulses. For example, it's common to hear people say "I'd like to kill my boss", or "If you do that one more time I'm going to kill you." They don't actually mean that they're going to, or even would, kill anyone; they're simply acknowledging anger and frustration. All of us suffer from fear and feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. Most people can acknowledge feelings of rage, fear, frustration, jealousy, etc. without having to act on them in inappropriate and destructive ways.

Some people, however, are unable consciously to admit that they have such "unacceptable" emotions. They may have higher than average levels of rage, frustration, or fear. Perhaps they fear that if they acknowledge the hostile feelings, they will lose control and really will hurt someone. They may believe that "good people" never have such feelings, when in fact all people have them.

This is especially true now that education "experts" commonly prohibit children from expressing negative emotions or aggression. Instead of learning that such emotions are normal, but that destructive behavior needs to be controlled, children now learn that feelings of anger are evil, dangerous and subject to severe punishment.7To protect themselves from "being bad", they are forced to use defense mechanisms to avoid owning their own normal emotions. Unfortunately, using such defense mechanisms inappropriately can endanger their mental health; children need to learn how to deal appropriately with reality, not how to avoid it.8

(This discussion of psychological mechanisms applies to the average person who is uninformed, or misinformed, about firearms and self-defense. It does not apply to the anti- gun ideologue. Fanatics like Charles Schumer know the facts about firearms, and advocate victim disarmament consciously and willfully in order to gain political power. This psychological analysis does not apply to them.)

Denial

Another defense mechanism commonly utilized by supporters of gun control is denial. Denial is simply refusing to accept the reality of a given situation.9 For example, consider a woman whose husband starts coming home late, has strange perfume on his clothes, and starts charging flowers and jewelry on his credit card. She may get extremely angry at a well-meaning friend who suggests that her husband is having an affair. The reality is obvious, but the wronged wife is so threatened by her husband's infidelity that she is unable to accept it, and so denies its existence.

Anti-gun people do the same thing. It's obvious that we live in a dangerous society, where criminals attack innocent people. Just about everyone has been, or knows someone who has been, victimized. It's equally obvious that law enforcement can't protect everyone everywhere 24 hours a day. Extensive scholarly research demonstrates that the police have no legal duty to protect you10 and that firearm ownership is the most effective way to protect yourself and your family.11 There is irrefutable evidence that victim disarmament nearly always precedes genocide.12 Nonetheless, the anti-gun folks insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that "the police will protect you", "this is a safe neighborhood" and "it can't happen here", where "it" is everything from mugging to mass murder.

Anti-gun people who refuse to accept the reality of the proven and very serious dangers of civilian disarmament are using denial to protect themselves from the anxiety of feeling helpless and vulnerable. Likewise, gun owners who insist that "the government will never confiscate my guns" are also using denial to protect themselves from the anxiety of contemplating being forcibly disarmed and rendered helpless and vulnerable.

Reaction Formation

Reaction formation is yet another defense mechanism common among the anti-gun folks. Reaction formation occurs when a person's mind turns an unacceptable feeling or desire into its complete opposite.13 For example, a child who is jealous of a sibling may exhibit excessive love and devotion for the hated brother or sister.

Likewise, a person who harbors murderous rage toward his fellow humans may claim to be a devoted pacifist and refuse to eat meat or even kill a cockroach.14 Often such people take refuge in various spiritual disciplines and believe that they are "superior" to "less civilized" folks who engage in "violent behavior" such as hunting, or even target shooting. They may devote themselves to "animal welfare" organizations that proclaim that the rights of animals take precedence over the rights of people.15 This not only allows the angry person to avoid dealing with his rage, it allows him actually to harm the people he hates without having to know he hates them.

This is not meant to disparage the many wonderful people who are pacifists, spiritually inclined, vegetarian, or who support animal welfare. The key issue is not the belief itself, but rather the way in which the person experiences and lives his beliefs. Sincere practitioners seek to improve themselves, or to be helpful in a gentle, respectful fashion. They work to persuade others peacefully by setting an example of what they believe to be correct behavior. Sincere pacifists generally exhibit good will towards others, even towards persons with whom they might disagree on various issues.

Contrast the sincere pacifist or animal lover with the strident, angry person who wants to ban meat and who believes murdering hunters is justified in order to "save the animals" ? or the person who wants to outlaw self- defense and believes innocent people have the obligation to be raped and murdered for the good of society. For example, noted feminist Betty Friedan said "that lethal violence even in self defense only engenders more violence."16 The truly spiritual, pacifist person refrains from forcing others to do what he believes, and is generally driven by positive emotions, while the angry person finds "socially acceptable" ways to harm, abuse, or even kill, his fellow man.

In the case of anti-gun people, reaction formation keeps any knowledge of their hatred for their fellow humans out of consciousness, while allowing them to feel superior to "violent gun owners". At the same time, it also allows them to cause serious harm, and even loss of life, to others by denying them the tools necessary to defend themselves. This makes reaction formation very attractive from a psychological point of view, and therefore very difficult to counteract.


Defense Mechanisms Are Not Mental Illnesses
Defense mechanisms are normal. All of us use them to some extent, and their use does not imply mental illness. Advocates of victim disarmament may be misguided or uninformed, they may be stupid, or they may be consciously intent on evil, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "mentally ill".

Some defense mechanisms, however, are healthier than others. A safe general rule is that a defense is healthy if it helps you to function better in your personal and professional life, and unhealthy if it interferes with your life, your relationships, or the well-being of others. Young children utilize projection and denial much more commonly than do healthy adults. On the other hand, "if projection is used as a defense mechanism to a very great extent in adult life, the user's perception of external reality will be seriously distorted."17

Defense mechanisms are also frequently combined, so that an anti-gun person may use several defense mechanisms simultaneously. For example, my unfortunate correspondent uses projection to create a world in which all his neighbors want to murder him. As a result, he becomes more angry and fearful, and needs to employ even more defense mechanisms to cope. So he uses projection to attribute his own rage to others, he uses denial that there is any danger to protect himself from a world where he believes he is helpless and everyone wants to murder him, and he uses reaction formation to try to control everyone else's life because his own is so horribly out of control.

Also, it's important to remember that not all anti-gun beliefs are the result of defense mechanisms. Some people suffer from gun phobia18, an excessive and completely irrational fear of firearms, usually caused by the anti-gun conditioning they've been subjected to by the media, politicians, so-called "educators," and others. In some cases, gun phobia is caused by an authentic bad experience associated with a firearm. But with all due respect to Col. Jeff Cooper, who coined the term "hoplophobia" to describe anti-gun people, most anti-gun people do not have true phobias. Interestingly, a person with a true phobia of guns realizes his fear is excessive or unreasonable,19 something most anti-gun folks will never admit.

Defense mechanisms distort reality

Because defense mechanisms distort reality in order to avoid unpleasant emotions, the person who uses them has an impaired ability to recognize and accept reality. This explains why my e-mail correspondent and many other anti-gun people persist in believing that their neighbors and co- workers will become mass murderers if allowed to own firearms.

People who legally carry concealed firearms are actually less violent and less prone to criminal activity of all kinds than is the general population.20 A person who has a clean record, has passed an FBI background check, undergone firearms training, and spent several hundred dollars to get a permit and a firearm, is highly unlikely to choose to murder a neighbor. Doing so would result in his facing a police manhunt, a trial, prison, possibly capital punishment, and the destruction of his family, job, and reputation. Obviously it would make no sense for such a person to shoot a neighbor - except in self-defense. Equally obviously, the anti-gun person who believes that malicious shootings by ordinary gun owners are likely to occur is not in touch with reality.21


The Common Thread: Rage
In my experience, the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they're less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can't handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti-gun people have so much rage and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? Consider for a moment that the largest and most hysterical anti-gun groups include disproportionately large numbers of women, African- Americans and Jews. And virtually all of the organizations that claim to speak for these "oppressed people" are stridently anti-gun. Not coincidentally, among Jews, Blacks and women there are many "professional victims" who have little sense of identity outside of their victimhood.

Identity as Victim

If I were to summarize this article in three sentences, they would be:


(1) People who identify themselves as "victims" harbor excessive amounts of rage at other people, whom they perceive as "not victims."
(2) In order psychologically to deal with this rage, these "victims" utilize defense mechanisms that enable them to harm others in socially acceptable ways, without accepting responsibility or suffering guilt, and without having to give up their status as "victims."

(3) Gun owners are frequently the targets of professional victims because gun owners are willing and able to prevent their own victimization.

Thus the concept of "identity as victim" is essential. How and why do members of some groups choose to identify themselves as victims and teach their children to do the same? While it's true that women, Jews, and African- Americans have historically been victimized, they now participate in American society on an equal basis. And other groups, most notably Asian-Americans, have been equally victimized, and yet have transcended the "eternal victim" mentality.

Why, for example, would a 6'10" NBA player who makes $10 million a year see himself as a "victim"? Why would a successful, respected, wealthy, Jewish physician regard himself as a "victim"? Conversely, why might a wheelchair bound woman who lives on government disability NOT regard herself as a victim?

I would argue it's because the basketball player and the physician believe that their identities are dependent on being victims ? not because they have actually been victimized, but because they're members of groups that claim victim status. Conversely, the disabled woman was probably raised to believe that she is responsible for her own success or failure.

In fact, many people who have been victims of actual violent crime, or who have survived war or civil strife, support the right of self-defense. The old saying is often correct: "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."

Special Treatment and Misleading Leaders

Two reasons for these groups to insist on "victim" status seem likely. First, by claiming victim status, members of these groups can demand (and get) special treatment through quotas, affirmative action, reparations, and other preferential treatment programs.

Second, these people have been indoctrinated to believe that there is no alternative to remaining a victim forever. Their leaders remind them constantly that they are mistreated in every imaginable way (most of them imaginary!), attribute every one of life's misfortunes to "racism" or "sexism" or "hate crimes", and dream up ever more complex schemes for special treatment and favors.22 These leaders are the ones who preach that the entire Black experience is slavery and racism, or that Jewish history before and after the Holocaust is irrelevant,23 or that happily married women are really victims of sexual slavery.24

Likewise, the NAACP is suing firearms manufacturers to put them out of business,25 and is especially opposed to the inexpensive pistols that enable the poor to defend themselves in gang-ridden inner cities. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed evicting anyone who dares to keep a tool of self-defense in any of its crime-infested housing projects. Jewish leaders, especially those in the politically correct "Reform" branch, preach that gun control is "a solemn religious obligation",26 contrary to the teachings of their sacred scriptures and their own history.27 Law enforcement agencies falsely teach women that they are safest if they don't resist rapists and robbers,28 while women's organizations advocate gun control, thus rendering women and their children defenseless.

Victimhood is good business for organizations that foster victim status. As victims, the members depend upon the organization to protect them, and the organization in turn relies on members for funding and political power. In the interest of self-preservation, these organizations work hard at preserving hatred and bigotry and at keeping their members defenseless ? and therefore dependent.

Anti-gun groups love victims!

From my observations, pro-victimhood is a feature of all of the anti-gun special interest groups, not just the ones mentioned here. Every organization that supports gun control apparently wants its members to be helpless, terrified and totally dependent on someone else to control every aspect of their lives. It doesn't matter whether it's a religious, racial, ethnic, political, social, or charitable group. From Handgun Control, Inc. to the Anti- Defamation League to the Million Mom March, they all want you to live in fear. In this scheme, soccer moms are "victims" just as much as are inner-city minorities.

If these organizations truly cared about the people for whom they claim to speak, they would encourage safe and responsible firearms ownership. They would help people to learn how to defend themselves and their families so that they wouldn't have to live in fear. They would tell everyone that one of the wonderful things about being an American is that you have the right to keep and bear arms, the right to defend yourself, and how these rights preserve the right to be free.

The psychological price of being a victim

In our current society, victimhood has many perceived benefits, but there are some serious drawbacks. Victims tend to see the world as a scary and threatening place. They believe that others treat them differently, unfairly, and even maliciously ? and that they are helpless to do anything about it. This belief, that they are being mistreated and are helpless to resist, generates tremendous rage, and often, serious depression.

But for victims to show rage openly can be dangerous, if not outright suicidal. For example, a battered woman who screams at or hits her attacker may provoke worse beatings or even her own murder. And a person who successfully defends himself loses his status as "victim." For someone whose entire identity is dependent on being a victim, the loss of victim status is just as threatening as loss of life.

So, unable psychologically to cope with such rage, people who view themselves as victims: (1) use defense mechanisms to displace it into irrational beliefs about neighbors killing each other, and the infallibility of police protection, and (2) attempt to regain control by controlling gun owners, whom they wrongly perceive as "the enemy".

Say NO to being a victim!

But no one needs to be a victim! Quite simply, it's not very easy to victimize a person who owns and knows how to use a firearm. If most women owned and carried firearms, rapes and beating would decrease.29 Thugs who target the elderly and disabled would find honest work once they realized they were likely to be looking down the barrel of a pistol or shotgun. It's nearly impossible to enslave, or herd into concentration camps, large numbers of armed people.


Communicating with anti-gun people
How can you communicate more effectively with an anti-gun person who is using unhealthy defense mechanisms? There are no quick and easy answers. But there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Anger and attacks do not work

Most gun owners, when confronted by an anti-gun person, become angry and hostile. This is understandable, because gun owners increasingly face ridicule, persecution and discrimination. (If you don't believe this, ask yourself if anyone would seriously introduce legislation to ban African- Americans, women, or Jews from post offices, schools, and churches. Even convicted felons aren't banned from such places ? but peaceful armed citizens are!) But an angry response is counterproductive.

It's not helpful to attack the person you're trying to persuade. Anything that makes him feel more fearful or angry will only intensify his defenses. Your goal is to help the person feel safe, and then to provide experiences and information that will help him to make informed decisions.

Be Gentle

You should never try to break down a defense mechanism by force. Remember that defense mechanisms protect people from feelings they cannot handle, and if you take that protection away, you can cause serious psychological harm. And because defense mechanisms operate unconsciously, it won't do any good to show an anti-gun person this article or to point out that he's using defense mechanisms. Your goal is gently and gradually to help the person to have a more realistic and rational view of the world. This cannot be done in one hour or one day.

As you reach out to people in this way, you need to deal with both the illogical thought processes involved and the emotional reactions that anti-gun people have to firearms. When dealing with illogical thought processes, you are attempting to use reason and logic to convince the anti-gun person that his perception of other people and his perception of firearms are seriously inaccurate. The goal is to help him to understand that armed citizens and firearms are not threats, and may even save his life.


Reversing Irrational thoughts
The Mirror Technique

One approach that can be helpful is simply to feed back what the anti-gun person is telling you, in a neutral, inquisitive way. So, when replying to my anonymous e-mail correspondent (above), I might respond, "So you fear if your neighbors had guns, they would use them to murder you. What makes you think that?" When you simply repeat what the person has said, and ask questions, you are not directly challenging his defenses. You are holding up a mirror to let him see his own views. If he has very strong defenses, he can continue to insist that his neighbors want to murder him. However, if his defenses are less rigid, he may start to question his position.

Another example might be, "Why do you think that your children's schoolteachers would shoot them?" You might follow this up with something like, "Why do you entrust your precious children to someone you believe would murder them?" Again, you are merely asking questions, and not directly attacking the person or his defenses.

Of course the anti-gun person might continue to insist that the teachers really would harm children, but prohibiting them from owning guns would prevent it. So you might ask how using a gun to murder innocent children is different from stabbing children with scissors, assaulting them with baseball bats, or poisoning the milk and cookies.

It's important to ask "open-ended" questions that require a response other than "yes" or "no". Such questions require the anti-gun person actually to think about what he is saying. This will help him to re-examine his beliefs. It may also encourage him to ask you questions about firearms use and ownership.

The "What Would You Do?" Technique

Once you have a dialogue going with an anti-gun person, you might want to insert him into a hypothetical scenario, although doing so is a greater threat to his defenses, and is therefore more risky. You might ask how he would deal with a difficult or annoying co-worker. He will likely respond that he would never resort to violence, but "other people" would, especially if they had guns. (Projection again.) You can then ask him who these "other people" are, why they would shoot a co-worker, and what the shooter would gain by doing so.

Don't try to "win" the argument. Don't try to embarrass the person you're trying to educate. Remember that no one likes to admit that his deeply held beliefs are wrong. No one likes to hear "I told you so!" Be patient and gentle. If you are arrogant, condescending, hurtful or rude to the anti-gun person, you will only convince him that gun owners are arrogant, hurtful people ? who should not be trusted with guns!


Defusing Emotional reactions
The "You Are There" Technique

Rational arguments alone are not likely to be successful, especially since many people "feel" rather than "think". You also need to deal with the emotional responses of the anti-gun person. Remember that most people have been conditioned to associate firearms with dead toddlers. So you need to change the person's emotional responses along with his thoughts.

One way to do this is to put the anti-gun person (or his family) at a hypothetical crime scene and ask what he would like to have happen. For example, "Imagine your wife is in the parking lot at the supermarket and two men grab her. One holds a knife to her throat while the other tears her clothes off. If I see this happening and have a gun, what should I do? What would happen next? What if after five minutes, the police still haven't arrived?"

Just let him answer the questions and mentally walk through the scenario. Don't argue with his answers. You are planting seeds in his mind than can help change his emotional responses.

The Power of Empathy

Another emotion-based approach that is often more successful is to respond sympathetically to the plight of the anti-gun person.

Imagine for a moment how you would feel if you believed your neighbors and co-workers wanted to kill you and your family, and you could do nothing at all about it except to wait for the inevitable to occur.

Not very pleasant, is it?

This is the world in which opponents of armed self-defense live. All of us have had times in our lives when we felt "different" and had to contend with hostile schoolmates, co- workers, etc. So we need to invoke our own compassion for these terrified people. Say something like, "It must be awful to live in fear of being assaulted by your own neighbors. I remember what it was like when I was the only (Jew, Mormon, African-American, Republican) in my (class, football team, workplace) ? and even then I didn't think anyone was going to kill me." It's essential that you sincerely feel some compassion and empathy; if you're glib or sarcastic, this won't work.

Using empathy works in several ways. First, it defuses a potentially hostile interaction. Anti-gun people are used to being attacked, not understood, by advocates of gun rights. Instead of an "evil, gun-toting, extremist", you are now a sympathetic, fellow human being. This may also open the door for a friendly conversation, in which you can each discover that your "opponent" is a person with whom you have some things in common. You may even create an opportunity to dispel some of the misinformation about firearms and self-defense that is so prevalent.

This empathy technique is also useful for redirecting, or ending, a heated argument that has become hostile and unproductive. It allows you to escape from the dead end of "guns save lives" vs. "the only reason to have a gun is to murder children." With empathy you can reframe the argument entirely. Instead of arguing about whether more lives are saved or lost as a result of gun ownership, you can comment on how terrifying it must be to live in a country where 80 million people own guns "solely for the purpose of murdering children".

You should not expect any of these approaches to work immediately; they won't. With rare exceptions, the anti-gun person is simply not going to "see the light," thank you profusely, and beg you to take him shooting. What you are doing is putting tiny chinks into the armor of the person's defenses, or planting seeds that may someday develop into a more open mind or a more rational analysis. This process can take months or years. But it does work!


Corrective Experiences
Perhaps the most effective way to dissolve defense mechanisms, however, is by providing corrective experiences30. Corrective experiences are experiences that allow a person to learn that his ideas about gun owners and guns are incorrect in a safe and non-threatening way. To provide a corrective experience, you first allow the person to attempt to project his incorrect ideas onto you. Then, you demonstrate that he is wrong by your behavior, not by arguing.

For example, the anti-gun person will unconsciously attempt to provoke you by claiming that gun owners are uneducated "rednecks," or by treating you as if you are an uneducated "redneck." If you get angry and respond by calling him a "stupid, liberal, socialist", you will prove his point. However, if you casually talk about your M.B.A., your trip to the Shakespeare festival, your vegetable garden, or your daughter's ballet recital, you will provide him with the opportunity to correct his misconceptions.

If you have used the above techniques, then you have already provided one corrective experience. You have demonstrated to the frightened, anti-gun person that gun owners are not abusive, scary, dangerous and sub-human monsters, but normal, everyday people who care about their families, friends and even strangers.

As many gun owners have already discovered, the most important corrective experiences involve actually exposing the fearful person to a firearm. It is almost never advisable to tell someone that you carry a concealed firearm, but there are ways to use your own experience favorably.

For example, if you're dealing with an anti-gun person with whom you interact regularly and have a generally good relationship ? a coworker, neighbor, church member, etc. ? you might indirectly refer to concealed carry. You should never say anything like "I'm carrying a gun right now and you can't even tell," especially because in some states that would be considered illegal, "threatening" behavior. But you might consider saying something like, "I sometimes carry a firearm, and you've never seemed to be uncomfortable around me." Whether to disclose this information is an individual decision, and you should consider carefully other consequences before using this approach.

First-hand experience

Ultimately, your goal is to take the anti-gun person shooting. Some people will accept an invitation to accompany you to the range, but others are too frightened to do so, and will need some preliminary experience.

First, you want to encourage the anti-gun person to have some contact with a firearm in whatever way feels most comfortable to him. Many people seem to believe that firearms have minds of their own and shoot people of their own volition. So you might want to start by inviting him simply to look at and then handle an unloaded firearm. This also provides you the opportunity to show the inexperienced person how to tell whether a firearm is loaded and to teach him the basic rules of firearms safety.

Encourage the newcomer to ask questions and remember that your role is to present accurate information in a friendly, responsible and non-threatening way. This is a good time to offer some reading material on the benefits of firearms ownership. But be careful not to provide so much information that it's overwhelming. And remember this is not the time to launch into anti-government rants, the New World Order, conspiracy theories, or any kind of political talk!

Next, you can invite your friend to accompany you to the shooting range. (And if you're going to trust each other with loaded guns, you should consider yourselves friends!) Assure him that no one will force him to shoot a gun and he's free just to watch. Let him know in advance what he will experience and what will be expected of him. This includes such things as the need for eye and ear protection, a cap, appropriate clothing, etc. Make sure you have a firearm appropriate for your guest should s/he decide to try shooting. This means a lower caliber firearm that doesn't have too much recoil. If your guest is a woman, make sure the firearm will fit her appropriately. Many rifles have stocks that are too long for small women, and double-stack semi-autos are usually too large for a woman's hand.

Remember that just visiting the range can be a corrective experience. Your guest will learn that gun owners are disciplined, responsible, safety-conscious, courteous, considerate, and follow the rules. He will see people of all ages, from children to the elderly, male and female, enjoying an activity together. He will not see a single "beer-swilling redneck" waving a firearm in people's faces.

In my experience, most people who visit a range will decide they do want to try shooting. Remember to make sure your guest understands all the safety rules and range rules before allowing him to handle a firearm. If you don't feel competent to teach a newcomer to shoot, ask an instructor or range master to assist. Remember to provide lots of positive feedback and encouragement. If you're lucky, you'll recruit a new firearms enthusiast.

But even if your guest decides that shooting is "not for him", he will have learned many valuable lessons. He will know basic rules of firearms safety, and how to clear a firearm should he need to do so. This may well save his life someday. He will know that guns do not fire unless a person pulls the trigger. He will know that gun owners are friendly, responsible people, not very different from him. Even if he chooses not to fire a gun ever again, he will be less likely to fear and persecute gun owners. And who knows ? a few months or years later he may decide to become a gun owner.

Why these techniques do not always work

You should remember that you will not be successful with all anti-gun people. Some people are so terrified and have such strong defenses, that it's not possible for someone without professional training to get through. Some people have their minds made up and refuse to consider opening them. Others may concede that what you say "makes sense," but are unwilling to challenge the forces of political correctness. A few may have had traumatic experiences with firearms from which they have not recovered.

You will also not be successful with the anti-gun ideologues, people like Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein. These people have made a conscious choice to oppose firearms ownership and self-defense. They almost always gain power, prestige, and money from their anti-gun politics. They are not interested in the facts or in saving lives. They know the facts and understand the consequences of their actions, and will happily sacrifice innocent people if it furthers their selfish agenda. Do not use these techniques on such people. They only respond to fears of losing the power, prestige and money that they covet.31

Conclusion

By better understanding advocates of civilian disarmament, and by learning and practicing some simple techniques to deal with their psychological defenses, you will be much more effective in your efforts to communicate with anti-gun people. This will enable you to be more successful at educating them about the realities of firearms and self- defense, and their importance to our liberty and safety.

Educating others about firearms is hard work. It's not glamorous, and it generally needs to be done one person at a time. But it's a very necessary and important task. The average American supports freedom of speech and freedom of religion, whether or not he chooses to exercise them. He supports fair trials, whether or not he's ever been in a courtroom. He likewise needs to understand that self- defense is an essential right, whether or not he chooses to own or carry a gun.


? 2000, Sarah Thompson.

Dr. Thompson is Executive Director of Utah Gun Owners Alliance, www.utgoa.org and also writes The Righter, www.therighter.com, a monthly column on individual rights.

Notes

1 Lott, John R., Jr. 1998. More Guns, Less Crime. University of Chicago Press. Pp. 11-12; Proposition B: More Security Or Greater Danger?, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 21, 1999.

2 Lott 1998, Pp. 1-2.

3 Kaplan, Harold M. and Sadock, Benjamin J. 1990. Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychiatry. Williams & Wilkins. P. 20.

4Brenner, Charles. 1973. An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis (rev. ed.). Anchor Books. Pp. 91-93; Lefton, Lester A. 1994. Psychology (5th edition). Allyn & Bacon. Pp. 432-433.

5 Brenner 1973. P. 91.

6 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 432.

7 Talbott, John A., Robert E. Hales and Stuart C. Yudofsky, eds. 1988. Textbook of Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Press. P.137.

8 "Kids Suspended for Playground Game." Associated Press. April 6, 2000.

9 Lightfoot, Liz. "Gun Return to the Nursery School Toy Chest." The London Telegraph. May 22, 2000. Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 433.

10 Stevens, Richard W. 1999. Dial 911 and Die. Mazel Freedom Press. [Analyzes the law in 54 U.S. jurisdictions]; see, e.g., Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982) [no federal constitutional right to police protection.]

11 Kleck, Gary and Gertz, Marc. 1995. Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self- Defense with a Gun. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology. Vol. 86 (Fall), pp. 150-187.

12 Simkin, Jay, Zelman, Aaron, and Rice, Alan M. 1994. Lethal Laws. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

13 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 20; Lefton 1994, p. 433.

14 Brenner 1973, p. 85.

15 Veith, Gene Edward, Jr. 1993. Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing. Pp. 39-40 [fascism exalts nature, animals and environment].

16 Japenga, A. 1994. Would I Be Safer with a Gun? Health. March/April, p. 54.

17 Brenner 1973, p. 92.

18 Kaplan and Sadock 1990, p. 219.

19 American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. P. 410.

20 Lott 1998, pp. 11-12.

21 Most American gun owners are not violent criminals and will not be potential killers. "The vast majority of persons involved in life-threatening violence have a long criminal record and many prior contacts with the justice system." Elliott, Delbert S. 1998. Life Threatening Violence is Primarily a Crime Problem: A Focus on Prevention. University of Colorado Law Review. Vol. 69 (Fall), pp. 1081-1098, at 1093.

22 Sowell, Thomas. 2000. Blacks and bootstraps. Jewish World Review (Aug.14). http://www.jewishworldreview.com

23x Wein, Rabbi Berel. 2000. The return of a Torah scroll and confronting painful memories. Jewish World Review (July 12).

24 Dworkin, Andrea. "Terror, Torture and Resistance". http://www.igc.org/Womensnet/dworkin/TerrorTortureandResistance.html

25 Mfume, Kweisi, speech at the 90th annual NAACP meeting, July 12, 1999. http://www.naacp.org/president/speeches/90th%20Annual%20Meeting.htm

26 Yoffie, Rabbi Eric H. Speech supporting the Million Mom March, May 14, 2000. http://uahc.org/yoffie/mmm.html

27 "If someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him." The Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin. 1994. The Schottenstein Edition. New York: Mesorah Publications. Vol. 2, 72a.

28 Rape and Sexual Assault, Dean of Students Office for Women's Resources and Services McKinley Health Education Dept., University Police, University of Illinois; Hazelwood, R. R. & Harpold, J. 1986. Rape: The Dangers of Providing Confrontational Advice, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Vol. 55, pp. 1-5.

29 Lott 1998, pp. 78, 134-37.

30 Frank, Jerome D. 1961. Persuasion and Healing. The Johns Hopkins Press. Pp. 216-217.

31 Richardson, H. L. 1998. Confrontational Politics. Gun Owners Foundation. 1

MIT Students To 'Track' Politicians

Turn tables on feds with website to
monitor government officials


Posted: July 7, 2003
5:00 p.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty
? 2003 WorldNetDaily.com


Modeled after a Defense Department concept that
ostensibly could keep tabs on every American, a
pair of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
students have created a website in which users
can "track" politicians and government officials.

The project, called Government Information
Awareness, or GIA, was developed by Chris
Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT
Media Lab, and graduate student Ryan McKinley.

The goal was to design a site that would act as
"sort of a citizen's intelligence agency,"
Csikszentmihalyi told the Boston Globe.

The GIA model was inspired by a Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency creation
known as Total Information Awareness, or TIA,
which later was renamed the Terrorism
Information Awareness system after it was
learned TIA could be used to monitor the activities
of millions of Americans in the government's
search for possible terrorists.

TIA is capable of analyzing financial, medical,
consumer, educational and travel data, among
other pieces of information, to formulate a pattern
of behavior that would match pre-determined
terrorist profiles.

"The goal of the Terrorism Information Awareness
program is to revolutionize the ability of the
United States to detect, classify and identify
foreign terrorists ? and decipher their plans ? and
thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to
successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts,"
says a DARPA description of the program.

Congress limited the scope of the program after
complaints from a number of civil liberties
organizations.

Many of those concerns were addressed in a letter
to the U.S. Senate by the Association for
Computing Machinery, which stated that
"because of serious security, privacy, economic,
and personal risks associated with the
development of a vast database surveillance
system, we recommend a rigorous, independent
review of these aspects of TIA."

"There are important steps that the government
can take now to increase our security without
creating a massive surveillance program that has
the potential of doing more harm than good," said
the letter. "Federal, state and local governments
already have information systems in place that
could play major roles with highly focused
'terrorist spotting.'"

Nevertheless, the architects of GIA say their goal is
similar, only in reverse; they want average citizens
to be able to keep track of information relating to
government employees and politicians.

GIA's mission is "to empower citizens by providing
a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of
information on individuals, organizations, and
corporations related to the government of the
United States of America," according to a
description posted on the GIA website.

Also, GIA's mission is "to allow citizens to submit
intelligence about government-related issues,
while maintaining their anonymity" and "to allow
members of the government a chance to
participate in the process."

"In the United States, there is a widening gap
between a citizen's ability to monitor his or her
government and the government's ability to
monitor a citizen," says the website. "Average
citizens have limited access to important
government records, while available information is
often illegible. Meanwhile, the government's
eagerness and means to oversee a citizen's
personal activity is rapidly increasing."

McKinley told the Boston Globe "total
information" should be a two-way street between
government and civilians.

"If total information exists, really the same effort
should be spent to make the same information at
the leadership level at least as transparent ? in my
opinion, more transparent," he said.

Part of the technology involved in the site is
similar to data mining software used by such
search engines as Google. That includes, said the
Globe, "independent political sites like
opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by
government agencies."

Also, Csikszentmihalyi and McKinley took
advantage of round-the-clock political coverage by
cable channels such as C-SPAN. The MIT students
use video cameras to capture images of people on
screen, which are generally accompanied by their
names.

The Globe says a computer program then "reads"
each name and matches it to existing information
about that person already stored on site.



Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for
WorldNetDaily.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33455


Government Information Awareness......a 'citizens' intelligence agency'.....

I like it.

http://opengov.media.mit.edu/GIA/TIA/

Item Number:14
Date: 07/08/2003
PHILIPPINES - GOVERNMENT SEIZES REBEL CAMP (JUL 08/PHILSTAR)

PHILIPPINE STAR -- New People's Army (NPA) rebels and Philippine
security forces fought in Aeta village in Zambales province, reports
the Philippine Star.  Some 20 rebels were killed and five police officers were killed in the clash. Government troops were trying to seize a makeshift NPA training camp when rebel snipers fired on them.  After a bloody firefight, the army captured the camp.

NIGERIA
Kidnapped OFWs in Nigeria Freed
from Agence France Presse on Monday, July 07, 2003
LAGOS--Two Filipino oil workers who were kidnapped by pirates in Nigeria's western Niger Delta region and held for two weeks have been freed, their embassies said Monday.

"They are OK," Philippine Ambassador to Nigeria Masaranga Umpa told Agence France-Presse. "They have been released, through the intervention of the governor of Delta State (James Ibori)."

Another captive, a German national, was also freed.

The German embassy's spokesman confirmed that the men were free but could give no further details. Both embassies said the hostages were now in the company of embassy staff.

An armed gang stormed a US-owned oil industry tugboat as it made its way through the swamps of the western delta last month and captured its German captain and two Filipino crewmen.

The trio were held in a village in the home area of the restless Ijaw ethnic group, which in March launched a rebellion against its perceived political marginalization.

But the motive for the kidnap appears to have been purely criminal. The men's captors demanded 25 million naira (equivalent to 197,000 dollars or 168,000 euros) in ransom and 400,000 naira for food.

Neither embassy could say if a ransom had been paid.

The men worked for the Florida-based oil services company Seabulk, which works as a sub-contractor supplying crews and vessels to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in the delta.

In March, unrest among the Ijaws forced Shell and major US oil firm ChevronTexaco to shut down their operations in the western Delta, cutting more than 40 percent from Nigeria's oil output.

Production is now returning to normal, but the situation remains tense. Even before the March uprising the kidnapping of oil workers was fairly common.

Copyright 2003 www.inq7.net

www.stratfor.com

Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, July 3, 2003

The change of command at CENTCOM is scheduled for July 7, the U.S.
Department of Defense announced today. That answers the question we posed on June 26, when we wrote, "Since our view is that Iraq is now in crisis and that the crisis is intensifying, it follows that an accelerated change of command is in order. If [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld grasps the magnitude of the challenge -- and by now he would have to be in a coma not to -- he will dramatically speed up the transition at CENTCOM." Clearly, Rumsfeld is not in a coma. We can speculate as to why he has chosen to speak about Iraq as he has, but that is no longer all that interesting. The fact is the change of command at CENTCOM will take place at the earliest possible moment, which means Rumsfeld fully understands the severity of the situation, regardless of what he says.

Obviously, it will be left to Gen. John Abiziad to craft the counterinsurgency strategy. However, the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, is asking for a 33 percent increase in the number of troops in Iraq. Reuters quoted a "senior Pentagon official" -- also known as Rumsfeld (we never have figured out why Washington officials play these games, but they all do) -- as saying, "There has been no such request. There are still remnants that are going to try to do harm to our forces. And there are still going to be casualties. The other side is if you put more troops in, you put more targets in there." But you also increase the risk to the guerrillas. Either way, it is clear that a bottoms-up review of U.S. strategy will take place under Abiziad's control, and that review is under way now. Abiziad is in-theater now but will return next week for the change-of-command ceremony. We expect that he also will present his recommendations to Rumsfeld and U.S. President George W. Bush.

It should be noted that there appears to be a decrease in Iraqi guerrilla
operations in the past 24 hours, since Operation Sidewinder got into high
gear. Therefore, an argument can be made -- and we suspect it will be
made -- that more troops mean more Sidewinders, not that 24 hours means a whole lot.

As if Iraq and al Qaeda weren't enough, it looks fairly certain that the
United States will send nearly 1,000 Marines to Liberia. There has been an
ongoing civil war there, and the country is essentially in a state of chaos.
U.N. General-Secretary Kofi Annan asked the United States to send troops to Liberia. U.S. officials did not want to get involved there, but Annan was insistent and Washington was trapped. Having made the case for intervention in Iraq against Annan's wishes, U.S. officials were hard-pressed to reject Annan's call for intervention in Liberia. The logic is not crisp, but the public relations are. We suspect Annan enjoyed maneuvering the United States into an intervention. As of this hour, the intervention is not a done deal. Washington is hoping for any miracle that would keep it from sending troops into a situation that is both hopeless and not directly related to what the administration sees as core U.S. interests. But the probability is that the Marines will go in -- although the mission and exit strategy are not clear to us at all, and imaginative explanations is what we do for a living.

Japan buckled under U.S. pressure today. The Japanese were moving toward a deal worth $2 billion to develop the Azadegan oil field in Iran. The United States is putting intense pressure on Iran to curtail its nuclear
development program and one of the levers is to try to isolate Iran
economically. Japan's decision to reconsider its investment is a measure of the intensity of Washington's campaign. Japan imports all of the oil it
uses. It constantly is looking for long-term sources of oil as a matter of
core national policy. It also has a core national policy to maintain its
security relationship with the United States. The two cores collided, and
the United States won. The Japanese certainly are not happy to have been put in this position.

Making Japan unhappy is fairly gratuitous these days. What U.S. officials
really want to do is to make the Iranians unhappy. We suspect that they are quite unhappy with both the pressure and its effectiveness. What we continue to anticipate is the Iranian response. The student uprising in Iran has collapsed, but the Iranians continue to regard the rising as an American plot. It is very dangerous to make an enemy feel it is being crushed without actually crushing them. The heavier the pressure on the Iranians, without breaking them, the greater the pressure is for Iran to try to do something decisive -- like stir up the Iraqi Shiites. The United States is on a tightrope with Iran, which is why the faster Abiziad can get control of the situation in Iraq -- assuming he can get control -- the happier Washington is going to be.

Your Papers, Please
"...How did [Americans] manage to reverse [their] thinking? When did appeals to the lessons of history become treasonous? How did philosophic principles collapse into patriotic slogans? The answers to such questions underlie explanations for the much broader phenomenon of the collapse of Western civilization itself. Our very survival -- both as individuals and as a civilization -- depends upon a radical transformation of our thinking, one that compels us to confront those silent voices within us that can so easily erupt into bloodbaths..."

Butler Shaffer

Georgetown, Texas. Like a lynch mob fueled by a fear of the unknown and a willingness to see strangers as threats to be quickly dispatched, the herd impulse has, since 9/11, become mobilized on behalf of a war against shadows. Even beyond the violent and repressive reactions of the American government, the most unsettling consequence of the WTC attacks has been the nearly total collapse of the minds of most Americans.

For the duration of the war -- which government officials tell us will go on forever! -- men and women have rationed their intelligence and allowed what they would have heretofore regarded as their "fundamental principles" to be conscripted into the service of the state.

Americans who, five years ago, were so incensed at Bill Clinton's perjured testimony that impeachment proceedings were brought, now exhibit a willingness to be lied to about matters of far greater concern than oval office shenanigans. As the Bush administration continues to pile lie upon lie, it is evident that most Americans are completely indifferent to the purposes for the attack upon Iraq. I suspect that, if Bush and his fellow war conspirators were to publicly announce that the Iraqi invasion was deigned for no other purpose than to put money into their pockets, most Americans -- led by their electronic cheerleaders on talk-radio and cable television -- would praise them for showing "ambition" and "leadership!"

America is becoming the Nazi Germany we feared in my childhood. For those who were not around during those years, you can get a flavor for the anti-tyrannical sentiments of the time by watching any number of movies depicting the Nazi police-state. The constant presence of police; the insistence upon showing "your papers" to whichever government underling demanded them; the awareness that neither your person nor home was immune from state searches or seizures; the disappearance of people into unknown prison camps; neighbors spying upon neighbors, and children betraying their parents to the state; and the domination of society by a military and bureaucratic arrogance, arbitrariness, and absolutism, were constantly chilling examples of the dangers of state power.

How did we manage to reverse our thinking? When did appeals to the lessons of history become treasonous? How did philosophic principles collapse into patriotic slogans? The answers to such questions underlie explanations for the much broader phenomenon of the collapse of Western civilization itself. This is a topic around which my articles revolve, and has been addressed by numerous historians, as well as Carl Jung, whose psychological explanations add a depth to the inquiry unmatched by others.

A preoccupation with war has long been symptomatic of the decline of societies that practice it. Wars are essentially conducted by governments against their own people -- with "others" being held up as fear-objects around which to enlist the obedience and submission of their own citizenry. Any nation in wartime is telling us what George Bush, John Ashcroft, Tom Ridge, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, et al., are now telling us -- if we will suspend our indifference to truth long enough to observe -- namely, that society can only be held together by armed force, threats, imprisonment, and death. When coercion supplants cooperation; when the inviolability of the individual is sacrificed to some alleged collective security; and when violence is equated with "patriotism" and peace with "un-Americanism," the days of such a society are numbered.

<?<?For those who desire to understand the attraction that this violent, destructive system has for most of us, a new book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges, offers one of the most powerful critiques of the war system since Randolph Bourne. Not content to moralize against war or to call it names, Hedges analyzes the topic from an historical, psychological, and institutional perspective, drawing upon literary and mythological works to illustrate his observations. At the same time, his book is quite critical of war, not the kind of read that flag-waving, "United We Stand" jingoists will find comforting.

Hedges has been a foreign correspondent for some fifteen years for such news organizations as the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times. You may be more familiar with him as the recent commencement speaker at Rockford College, where he was hooted, heckled, and air-horned by war-lovers in the audience. Intellectual bankruptcy is another symptom of a dying culture, wherein discomforting ideas and criticisms can only be met with the kind of unfocused, thoughtless rage that is becoming increasingly evident in radio and television programming. For the herd-oriented, a new idea can only be countered not by clear thinking, but by blasts from an air-horn!

Hedges observes that "tates at war silence their own authentic and humane culture" and, in so doing, "erode the moral fabric" of a society. He adds: "[w]ar breaks down long-established prohibitions against violence, destruction, and murder," and leads to a situation in which "the domination and brutality of the battlefield is carried into personal life." "War," he goes on, "fills our spiritual void," and helps to erase "unsettling undercurrents of alienation and dislocation" in our lives. In words that reflect the disquieting climate in which we live, Hedges observes "a growing fusion between those in the state who wage war...and those who believe they understand and can act as agents for God."

I cannot exaggerate the importance of these observations. They force us, as do the writings of Jung, Krishnamurti, and others, to confront the "dark side" forces that reside within each of us no less than they did within tyrants and their supporters in other times and places. They also compel us to reconsider our thinking. The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge.

Hedges reminds us of the culture of war, which "is peddled by mythmakers" throughout society, including the modern media. You can observe such mythmaking as the media struggles to find evidence of "heroism" in a "war" that is more realistically described as a campaign of brutish bullying. A truckload of soldiers take a wrong turn on a road, are captured by Iraqi forces and later released, then brought back to America as "POW heroes"; the irresponsibility of single mothers leaving their infant children at home to go fight in a war; and the Hollywood-like staging of the "rescue" of Private Lynch, who is then brought back to America as a "heroine", are among the more apparent examples of the war system playing with smoke and mirrors in an effort to convince boobus Americanus of the nobility of the cause.

While the institutionalized butchery of the war system makes it difficult for me to equate it with heroism, one does, on occasion, find individual acts of a heroic quality even in battle. My favorite candidate for this role is Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War who came upon the scene of what we now know as the "My Lai Massacre." After becoming aware that what he was observing was not the ordinary combat of warfare, but a calculated slaughter of Vietnamese civilians by troops led by Lt. Calley, Thompson set his helicopter down between the civilians and the American troops. He then ordered his own crew to turn their machine guns on the American soldiers and, if they persisted in the slaughter, to fire on them. Thompson then took the civilians to safety and reported the incident, which led to the prosecution of Calley.

I doubt that there will be any statues of Hugh Thompson erected anywhere soon, or that he will be leading any Memorial Day parades. His actions were too heroic, for he stood up to the very excesses of butchery that Hedges informs us destroys our sense of humanity and, with it, our civilization. I would much rather have Hugh Thompson as my neighbor than I would any of the myriad of retired generals who became television network fixtures in the mythmaking to which we have become accustomed these past many months.

Our very survival -- both as individuals and as a civilization -- depends upon a radical transformation of our thinking, one that compels us to confront those silent voices within us that can so easily erupt into bloodbaths. While most of us continue to focus on the "Nazi holocaust" as the epitome of statist butchery, we must recall that the 20th century was the "holocaust century." Some 200,000,000 of our fellow human beings were slaughtered in various wars and genocides, and tens of millions more were wounded, both physically and spiritually, in ways that never heal.

Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us. The poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, declared: "I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy." While I share his sentiment, it is nonetheless evident that wars only bring up from the depths of our dark side the kinds of moral flotsam and jetsam that have surfaced in Washington, D.C. In the process, they destroy those qualities of peace, liberty, spiritual centeredness, mutual respect, and sense of individual responsibility which, alone, make for the greatness of any civilization.

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.

BY DIANE RAVITCH
Tuesday, July 1, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

Students across the state of New York recently took their Regents' examinations, the tests that they must pass in order to get a high school diploma. A year ago, the state education department was embarrassed when Jeanne Heifetz, a vigilant parent in Brooklyn, announced her discovery that state officials had expurgated literary selections on the English examination. Words and sentences that might offend anyone had been quietly deleted from passages by writers such as Elie Wiesel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Franz Kafka.

New York's penchant for bowdlerizing literature, it turns out, was not unique to the Empire State. The educational publishing industry follows very specific guidelines to ensure that school children are not exposed to words or topics that might be controversial, especially those that are related to gender, race, religion, or sex. I compiled a list of over 500 words that are banned by one or more publishers. Some are relatively obsolete, like "authoress" or "geezer," but others are everyday words that one is likely to encounter in the newspaper, like "landlord," "senior citizen," "dogma," "yacht" or "actress" (what would the late Katherine Hepburn have made of that?).


 

Since my book appeared, I have received a large number of letters from people in the educational publishing industry, offering fresh material about the sanitizing that occurs on a regular basis. In Michigan, the state does not allow mention of flying saucers or extraterrestrials on its test, because those subjects might imply the forbidden topic of evolution. A text illustrator wrote to say that she was not permitted to portray a birthday party because Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in celebrating birthdays. Another illustrator told me that he was directed to airbrush the udder from his drawing of a cow because that body part was "too sexual."
A review of my book in the Scotsman, an Edinburgh newspaper, said that a well-known local writer for children sold a story to an American textbook company, along with illustrations. The U.S. publisher, however, informed her that she could not show a little girl sitting on her grandfather's lap, as the drawing implied incest. So, the author changed the adult's face, so that the little girl was sitting on her grandmother's lap instead. A contributor to a major textbook series prepared a story comparing the great floods in 1889 in Johnstown, Pa., with those in 1993 in the Midwest, but was unable to find an acceptable photograph. The publisher insisted that everyone in the rowboats must be wearing a lifevest to demonstrate safety procedures.

A freelance writer sent me the "bias guidelines" for a major publisher of texts and tests. The "bias guidelines" consist of advice to writers and editors about words and topics that must be avoided, as well as specifications for illustrations. Like other publishers, this one requires adherence to gender and ethnic balance. All lessons, test questions, and illustrations must reflect the following ratios: 50-50 male-female; 45% Caucasian; 25% African American; 22% Hispanic American; 5% Asian American; 5% American Indian and others; and 3% "persons with disabilities." These figures do not total 100%, nor do they represent actual U.S. Census numbers, but the principle of representation is well understood by writers and editors. American society, as represented in the textbooks, is perfectly integrated by race, ethnicity, gender, age, and disability.

When it comes to illustrations in textbooks, certain images--women cooking, men acting assertive, scenes of poverty, and old people walking with the aid of a cane or a walker--are likewise considered unacceptable. The specifications for photographs, I have learned, are exquisitely detailed. Men and boys must not be larger than women and girls. Asians must not appear as shorter than non-Asians. Women must wear bras, and men must not have noticeable bulges below the waist. People must wear shoes and socks, never showing bare feet or the soles of shoes, and their shoelaces must be solid black, brown, or white. People must never gesture with their fingers, nor should anyone be depicted eating with the left hand. Things to avoid: holiday decorations and scenes in which a church or a bar appears in the background.

There are so many rules, one wonders how they manage to keep track of them. Even after its national humiliation a year ago, the New York State Education Department still manages to make mistakes. On the last administration of the Regents' English examination in January, the state asked high school seniors to write about a poem by Matthew Arnold. However, the examination did not mention the name of this famous poem ("Dover Beach"); it inexplicably offered only one stanza of the four-stanza poem; and it changed or misquoted an important line. Instead of Arnold's exclamation, "Ah, love, let us be true to one another!" it stated, "Ah, friend, let us be true to one another!"


 

As the example shows, bowdlerization is not only dishonest, it leads to dumbing down of language and ideas. And of one thing I am convinced: The widespread censorship of language and ideas in education caused by the demands of advocacy groups will not end unless it is regularly exposed to public review and ridicule. The next time someone in a publishing office or a state education agency suggests deleting a literary passage from a test or textbook because it contains the word "anchorman" or shows a witch flying around on a broomstick, perhaps someone in the room will say, "Wait, if we do that, people will laugh at us."

Ms. Ravitch is author of "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn" (Knopf, 2003).