Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Perhaps misfiled here, but I can't help wondering what else the Russian military is into if it's keep itself afloat pirating DVDs.

Want a pirate DVD? Try the secret nuclear bunker
From Jeremy Page in Moscow

DURING the Cold War the West spent billions of dollars trying to spy on the military installations of the Soviet Union. Now Western governments are targeting secret Russian military facilities in a new conflict, this time over the piracy of music, films and software.

The Russian Interior Ministry has revealed that millions of pirated DVDs, CDs and CD-ROMs are being produced at factories on secret military facilities beyond the jurisdiction of the police. The ministry said: ?Some of the counterfeit production is being made in commercial structures installed in secret and top-secret facilities.?

Western companies have lobbied the Kremlin for years to shut down the factories that have made Russia, with China and Indonesia, one of the biggest producers of pirated DVDs, CDs and CD-Roms. President Putin has come under pressure this year because the inclusion of Russia on a US piracy watchlist is a key obstacle to its hopes of joining the World Trade Organisation.

Russian police have had little success in clamping down on the factories, which can churn out an estimated 250 million discs a year, of which 90 per cent are pirated. In a kiosk less than 500 metres from the Moscow office of The Times, Anatoly offered a pirate DVD copy of the Adam Sandler comedy The Longest Yard ? released in Britain on September 9 ? for only 150 roubles (?3). ?Tomorrow I?ll have Revolver,? he said, even though Guy Ritchie?s latest film had its premiere in London only this week.

Industry experts say that of the 42 factories known to be producing bootleg films, music and software at least 12 are on restricted government or military sites, many in or around Moscow. Konstantin Zem-chinkov, the director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organisation (RAPO), said: ?They want to make it difficult for police to come in and raid them. The military knows about it and the Government knows about it.?

The problem, he said, was that much of Russia?s vast military industrial complex was moribund and desperate for cash. ?They have to have some money but the Government can?t supply it.?

It is hard to estimate the value of Russia?s pirate disc business, but with production costs of six roubles a disc it is undoubtedly huge. American businesses lost more that

$1.7 billion (?940 million) last year to copyright piracy in Russia, and more than $6 billion in the past five years, according to US officials. Shutting down such a lucrative business, therefore, has its risks. Last year Russian police working with the RAPO shut down Europe?s largest counterfeiting operation in a rented building on a military base in the city of Pushkino, near Moscow. The factory, which had been running for two years, housed equipment worth an estimated ?7 million including an ultramodern production line capable of producing 650,000 discs a month.

The pirates have threatened to retaliate against the RAPO and even tried to recover the confiscated machinery by using their connections in the Government. In June an anti- piracy activist in the far eastern region of Primorye was attacked by four men with baseball bats and rubber batons a day after he helped police to raid a pirate disc factory.

Even if the pirates are caught, they are rarely punished. Since the start of the year only 11 of 446 people found guilty of pirating offences have been given prison sentences, with the others receiving suspended sentences or having to pay fines.

An interesting "primary source" here.

A FEMA Volunteer Judges The FEMA Response As She Saw It
Written by Jodi Witte

Monday, September 19, 2005

Dear Friends and Family,
I just got home from 15 days in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.  I am tired, and I am emotional.  But mostly I am angry.  I am angry at the news--the television stations, the newspapers--for what I view is a grossly misrepresented placement of blame.  For those of you who know me, you know I work for FEMA as an "intermittent employee" of a disaster response team.  My team, called VMAT or Veterinary Medical Assistance Team, is part of the response branch of FEMA known as the National Disaster Medical System.

Let me tell you how "awful" FEMA's response was from someone who was there on the front lines working for FEMA.

President Bush declared a state of emergency prior to Katrina's landfall due to its strength and location.  This is not normally done before a hurricane makes landfall.  Damn good work by George W., in my honest opinion.  This opened the door for our federal teams to pre-deploy assets in nearby locations so that we were ready when Katrina did hit.  I was contacted by FEMA before the hurricane hit, asking for my availability and to place me on alert.  Many teams were moved into the region including 2 VMAT teams.   My team was mobilized immediately after landfall and I arrived in the area before New Orleans had completely filled with water, before we even realized how bad it was truly going to be.  FEMA responded immediately and with unprecedented numbers of responders.  There were DMAT teams inside the Super Dome before the levee broke.  Never before had so many FEMA teams and personnel been sent into a disaster.

One thing you must understand: the DMAT, VMAT, and DMORT teams that make up the National Disaster Medical System are NOT "first responders."  Our job is to supplement overwhelmed communities if needed.  The initial responsibility lies with the state.  If they become overwhelmed in the aftermath of a disaster where their local hospitals, medical, veterinary, and mortuary assets cannot handle the magnitude of the disaster, we come in and augment their resources.  It takes 24 to 48 hours to mobilize the federal assets in normal circumstances.  We come from every state in the United States, leaving our jobs and families behind at the drop of a hat to help where ever it is needed.  Our cache of equipment and medical supplies must either be moved from our home base or from the federal warehouses in Maryland by truck or plane.  This takes time.  But we were there before Katrina hit and many more arrived immediately after even before knowing the full scope of this disaster.

So why is FEMA being blamed?  I'm not exactly sure.  I really am not. Yes, FEMA was overwhelmed.  God sakes how could it not be?  This hurricane has been the largest natural disaster the United States has had on record.  Nothing can compare.  We train and train for almost anything.  We try to be ready.  But no one was ready for how bad this truly was.  I am sure there were some bad decisions made high up, and of that I cannot deny.  It was a logistical nightmare to get the teams placed and the supplies sent in.  Some stuff arrived too late.  But, seeing how hard the FEMA employees worked to help the people and animals of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama makes me angry and very, very sad to hear us put down so bad on television and in the news.

One day, just a couple days after New Orleans was under water, I was stationed in the New Orleans airport.  This is where I was the first week.  The airport was where all the buses and helicopters that were rescuing people from the city brought them first.  They came in the thousands to the airport and went through lines holding their last bit of possessions, which included a small amount of clothing or keepsakes and often times their pets.  Yes, they got to bring their pets with them on the buses and helicopters.  I know because I was there.  I saw them.  They came in and were triaged by FEMA medical personnel. Minor injuries or illnesses were treated with the utmost care and love by FEMA DMAT teams and then they took their place in line through concourse C to board planes to shelters where they could receive follow up medical treatment.  The very ill were moved into the D concourse area for more thorough medical care and support in a true MASH hospital set up right there inside the airport.  I walked through this area frequently and watched as DMAT members held hands of people critically and gravely ill, cared for them, helped them in so many ways trying to save their lives and to comfort those who could not be saved.

 I walked through feces, urine, blood, and vomit covering the floor of the airport.  I watched custodians working tirelessly to clean up the floor even though it was soiled again as soon it was cleaned.  People were handed water and food as soon as they arrived.  Those who were well, moved through an endless line to concourse B to board both commercial and military planes going to shelters in other states.  I walked the lines of concourse B, C, and D as did other members of my VMAT team to provide any needed veterinary care to the pets who were evacuated with their families.  We cared for stray animals that arrived at the airport too.  See, the coast guard and military helicopters were picking up stray animals if they had room when they would rescue people from the city. FEMA personnel did everything possible to comfort and care for the people of New Orleans.  I know because I was one of them, and I did everything I could for them, and I saw with my own eyes what the others were also doing.
 

 
This is a photo on the FEMA website.  What you don't see here is that this little dog is sitting below the hospital gurney of his master who was critically ill inside one of the DMAT MASH tents.  I walked through this medical tent to check on the dog with a couple other members of my VMAT team.  The nurse had given the dog a dish of water and was feeding him some crackers.  We promised the man we would bring back some food for his dog.  He was very thankful as he laid there with IVs going.  I returned a few minutes later with one other member of my team, bringing a Ziploc bag of dog food.  When we arrived they were moving him to a different stretcher because he needed to be medivac'ed out on a helicopter for more intense medical care.  The helicopter pilot told us he cannot take the dog unless its in a crate.  I stepped up to talk to the very ill man.  I asked him if he would let me care for his dog while he went to the hospital.  He grabbed my hand and had tears in his eyes as he begged me to help him take his dog with him because it was all he had left in the world.  There was nothing else. I looked into this man's eyes as he cried.  He was a middle aged white man with cuts and scrapes all over him.  His face was puffy and feverish with infection.
 
I then looked at the DMAT nurse and the Coast Guard pilot.  Both looked back at me with very grave expressions and each asked me to please find a crate for the dog so he can go with the man.  My teammate and I both knew right then that this man may not make it and we had to make sure he got to spend as much time as possible with his dog.

There was no way we were going to make him leave his dog behind. We took off running and found an empty crate.  It was a bit too small for the dog, but would work temporarily.  We returned and found the pilot waiting for us with the man.  Once we got the dog in the crate and on the stretcher with the man, he again took my hand and thanked us as we cried together.  He said "you have no idea what you have done for me and I will never forget it."  Then he was wheeled away toward the waiting helicopter.
 
So, at the end of this day--a 29 hour shift that I spent at the airport--I arrived back at our bunk location, a building on the campus of LSU where we slept on the floor, and I got to see the news on one of the cable networks.  I was absolutely outraged at the reports of the lack of response by FEMA.  I changed to another cable news network and saw the same thing there.  What they don't mention when they talk about FEMA is the people who make up FEMA's response, working countless hours, pouring their very heart and soul into this response despite being slammed and criticized all over the news.
 
I cried with sadness and anger at how we are viewed all over the world.  I am a FEMA responder who cannot wear my FEMA badge in public in Louisiana because everyone thinks we are so terrible.  Do they even yet mention how hard we have worked for the people and animals of Louisiana?  No, maybe they never will.
 
Just yesterday the radio was criticizing the fact that FEMA had so many trucks filled with water and supplies that were just sitting somewhere and was costing $600 per day each to sit and wait.  Does anyone realize this is the right thing to do?  There is already a tremendous amount of water and supplies in the areas.  The reason there are trucks waiting full of more supplies and water is so they can move at a moments notice to where ever they are needed at any time. Would they rather have the extra supplies sitting in a warehouse where they would have to wait to secure trucks, then load the supplies and water, then move them out?  No.  They complain about the lack of quick response by FEMA yet don't get the whole concept that these supplies and water sitting in trucks ready to go is for quick response and now they criticize FEMA readiness without realizing it.  The contradictions in the news is ridiculous.
 
Now 13 days after I first saw the news reporting how awful FEMA is, I still remain proud to be a member of FEMA, and I am proud of the work I did in New Orleans and I am proud to work for the federal government headed up by a strong and brave president.  It was not easy, and things may not have gone perfectly, but we did and continue to do amazing work there even if no one knows it because they will only look at what went wrong instead of so much that went right.

About the Writer: Jodi Beck Witte is a veterinary technician and weapons of mass destruction specialist for a FEMA disaster response team and manages an animal health website http://www.animalhelp.com. Jodi receives e-mail at jwitte@animalhelp.com.

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16863

U.S.: Suicide Bomber Says He Was Kidnapped
September 19th, 2005 @ 4:22am
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shiite mosque claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him to take on the mission. The U.S. military said its medical tests indicated the man was telling the truth.

Mohammed Ali, who claimed to be Saudi-born and appeared to be in his 20s, said he managed to flee after another suicide attacker set off his bomb, killing at least 12 worshippers Friday as they left a mosque in the northern city of Tuz Khormato.

In confession broadcast on state television later that day, Ali told Iraqi interrogators he did not want to bomb the mosque and hoped to go home.

Results from medical tests on Ali were "consistent with his story and characterization of his treatment," Col. Billy J. Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday.

Ali said insurgents kidnapped him from a field near his home earlier this month, then drugged and beat him.

His story was similar to those recounted by other captured militants. The captives routinely claim they were either coerced or fooled by insurgent leaders who promised them a role in the holy war against the U.S. military, only to find themselves as would-be suicide bombers sent to attack civilians.

Musab Aqil al-Khayal, a 19-year-old Syrian, was shown on state television Saturday confessing to his aborted involvement in a bombing earlier in the week in which a companion exploded his car bomb in the midst of day laborers assembled to find work. The Wednesday attack killed 112 people and wounded 250. Al-Khayal said handlers from the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group had duped him.

"Those dogs fooled me," he told Iraqi interrogators.

Televised interrogations and confessions are becoming increasingly common as Iraqi and American officials capture more militants and use their confessions in an attempt to undercut support for militants.

Ali, who also holds Iraqi citizenship, said he strapped on a crude suicide vest and was led to a second mosque in Tuz Khormato, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, "where he was told he would become a good Muslim and go to heaven if he carried out the attack," the U.S. military statement said.

Forced to enter the mosque, he waited until the others were distracted, ran out of the building and was arrested just minutes after the first attack, the statement said.

The kidnapping demonstrates the desperation of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his ability to execute his strategy," said Buckner.

"He knows that he can't win against Iraqi security and coalition forces, and is therefore willing to use innocent Iraqi citizens to further his cause to disrupt the election process and prevent a free and democratic Iraq," he said.

http://www.620ktar.com/?nid=46&sid=77473

I'm in the awkward position of being someone who generally supports abortion freedom, but who loathes the dubious and destructive manner by which it was arrived at. Krauthammer does a good job here of spelling my feelings out.

Roe v. Roberts
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 16, 2005; A31


In our lifetime has there been a more politically poisonous Supreme Court decision than Roe v. Wade ? Set aside for a moment your thoughts on the substance of the ruling. (I happen to be a supporter of legalized abortion.) I'm talking about the continuing damage to the republic: disenfranchising, instantly and without recourse, an enormous part of the American population; preventing, as even Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, proper political settlement of the issue by the people and their representatives; making us the only nation in the West to have legalized abortion by judicial fiat rather than by the popular will expressed democratically.

The corruption continues 32 years later. You could see it played out hour by hour in the Senate confirmation hearings of Judge John Roberts. Question upon question that pretended to be about high constitutional principle was really about abortion in ill-concealed disguise.

Senators asked gravely about how deeply Roberts believes in upholding precedent. Do you think that any of the Democrats were concerned whether Roberts would uphold Richmond v. Croson , the precedent that outlawed racial quotas in municipal contracting? Or Boy Scouts v. Dale , which permitted the exclusion of gay Scout leaders?

This is all about Roe . Take the lines of interrogation about Roberts's belief in the right to privacy. They are not asking about search and seizure in your home. They are asking about the "right to choose" (a brilliant locution that expunges the ugly word abortion from all political debate about abortion) -- what Roberts in 1981 correctly termed the "so-called 'right to privacy,' " a skepticism he is now required to disavow.

Why? Because everyone knows what happened to Robert Bork when he forthrightly and honestly denied some kind of separate, newly hatched right to privacy.

And then there are the learned Judiciary Committee disquisitions on "originalism" -- the judicial philosophy by which Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas try to anchor the Constitution in something real, i.e., the meaning of the words as intended and understood at the time they were written.

Originalism is itself highly problematic, the worst judicial philosophy except for all the others, because they permit unmoored and arbitrary constitutional interpretation -- and thus unmoored and arbitrary judicial power. The learned senators, however, really don't care much about originalism, except to the extent that it would, almost by definition, make Roberts a categorical opponent of Roe . Which is why Roberts denies that he has any ideology, any "overarching judicial philosophy," and is nothing more than an ad hoc, bottom-up type of guy.

Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. But he knows that if he dares to say otherwise, he gets Borked. If, on the other hand, he pretends to have a mind so scrubbed of theory that he is at a loss to explain gravitation itself, he gets to be chief justice of the United States for 40 years.

In 2000 Al Gore declared that he would not nominate a justice who did not support Roe. Dianne Feinstein says today that if she determines that Roberts opposes Roe , she will be compelled to vote against him. For Democrats, abortion is an open litmus test. For Republicans, it is a test of agility: Can they find the nominee who might be against Roe but has been circumspect enough not to say so publicly and who will be clever enough to avoid saying so at his confirmation hearings?

Circumspect and clever Roberts has been. No one really knows. But I predict two things: (a) Chief Justice Roberts will vote to uphold Roe v. Wade , and (b) his replacing his former boss, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, will move the court only mildly, but most assuredly, to the left -- as measured by the only available yardstick, the percentage of concurrences with the opinions of those conservative touchstones, Scalia and Thomas.

I infer this not just by what Roberts has said in his hearings -- that he supports Griswold v. Connecticut , that he deeply respects precedent and that he finds Roe itself worthy of respect. That is little beyond boilerplate. I infer it from his temperament, career and life history as an establishment conservative who prizes judicial modesty above all. Which means that while he will never repeat Roe , he will never repeal it and be the cause of the social upheaval that repeal would inevitably bring.

Not that this in any way disqualifies Roberts in my conservative eyes. He is a perfectly reasonable traditional conservative, who will be an outstanding chief justice. He is just not a judicial revolutionary. If you're a conservative looking for a return to the good old days, you'll be disappointed. And if you're a liberal who lives for the good old days because that's all that liberalism has left, tell Chuck Schumer to relax.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502141.html

Perhaps this piece speaks to FEMA's priorities. Not exactly the way I'd triage things. . . .

FEMA to the Rescue
The essentials prep work.
John Derbyshire

[On seeing the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, a close friend of mine contacted his local FEMA office to offer his services as a volunteer. He was told to report the following morning for an Orientation Class. All volunteers, he was told, must complete this class before being sent into the disaster area. My friend kindly provided me with a copy of the class schedule. I have reproduced the first two pages of the schedule below.]

Week One: The Volunteer as Citizen

Day 1: Diversity Awareness

The area affected by Hurricane Katrina includes a diverse population of many ethnicities, national origins, immigrations statuses, and faith traditions. In carrying out relief work, it is important that our workers and volunteers exhibit proper sensitivity to relief recipients from all backgrounds. Volunteers will undergo appropriate training, including the ?privilege walk,? basic Spanish-language instruction, and brief study of passages from the Q?u?r?a?n, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammachakkappavattana Sutra, and the collected speeches of Marcus Garvey.

Day 2: Harassment Awareness

Volunteers working with FEMA employees come under the scope of federal rules on sexual harassment, as set out in relevant EEOC guidelines. These guidelines will be reviewed and discussed. All volunteers must demonstrate full awareness of sexual harassment issues, both as they apply to other aid workers and volunteers, and as affecting aid recipients. Class events will include a taped lecture by Prof. Anita Hill, class staging of a one-act drama Tailhook Torment, and the ever-popular Packwood Pi?ata.

Day 3: Profiling Avoidance

Few behaviors give more offense, and few are as inimical to social harmony, as profiling. In our efforts to restore the social environment in the disaster area, we must strenuously avoid all appearance of profiling. All aid recipients must be dealt with on a basis of strict equality. In this workshop, attendees will study and discuss police profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike, airport security screening procedures, and the maligh effects of stereotyping on academic performance. This day?s session also includes a one-hour written test to screen volunteers for Islamophobia.

Day 4: GLBTQA Awareness

Our country has a dark record of oppression and discrimination towards orientational minorities. Because of this, we need to show particular sensitivity towards aid recipients from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, and asexual minorities. This day?s session will involve group case studies led by qualified, credentialed GLBTQA-awareness trainers, including HIV-positive persons. Rubber gloves, condoms, and dental dams will be supplied.

Day 5: Liability Awareness

While the federal government and its agencies are exempt from most liability issues, volunteers who are not federal employees need to be aware of their susceptibility to lawsuits alleging nuisance, negligence, trespass, etc. Experienced courtroom professionals will address the class, and there will be a case study: ?Punishing Good Deeds ? The Good Samaritan as Defendant.?

Week Two: The Volunteer as Custodian of the Environment

Day 1: Diversity in Nature ? Protecting Endangered Species.

When conducting disaster-relief operations, we must bear in mind that the environment exists not only for humans, but for our friends in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Wetland species are especially vulnerable?

I wouldn't say the disaster is all Bush's fault, but I think he
appointed "Brownie" and all these other unqualified hacks to FEMA
positions as a reward for their past service in one or both of his
election campiagns, figuring they'd never actually have to do anything
and if some real emergency did come up, he could simply replace them
with people who actually knew what they were doing.

Let's not forget that "Brownie" was vetted by 535 professional second guessers in congress. These days as we're being endlessly reminded about the solemn advise and consent role of congress as nominee Roberts gets the dog and pony show rolled out, let's be sure to take these procedural pontificates at their word. If they have a duty to examine things before the vote then they have an obligation to shoulder the blame after it.

Mom, suspect killed in carjacking, shooting

By DON PLUMMER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/13/05

Kimberly D. Boyd took her son to preschool Monday morning, then dropped by a bank before heading to her office in north Cobb County.

Minutes later, her routine was shattered, and sometime before 9:30 a.m. she was struggling for her life with a carjacker as her Toyota Sequoia raced south on U.S. 41. The kidnapping ended with the 30-year-old Acworth woman dead and the carjacker fatally shot by a passer-by.

Boyd died instantly when her SUV was broadsided by a cement truck, police said. Within seconds, the man driving Boyd's car was also dead ? shot by Shawn Roberts, 31, who had seen Boyd fighting the man and followed the car, police said.

"She was fighting for her life," Roberts, who lives in Acworth, told WAGA-TV.

Roberts told police he was driving north on U.S. 41 about 9:30 a.m. when he saw a man beating a woman outside the SUV, just south of the Lake Allatoona bridge. He stopped and turned around on the four-lane road to help the woman, said Cobb Police Cpl. Dana Pierce.

The carjacker pushed the woman back into the SUV and took off, with the doors still open. Roberts followed about two miles to Lake Acworth Drive, where the crash occurred, Pierce said.

As Boyd's car turned east on Lake Acworth Drive it was struck by the cement truck.

Witness Bobby Williams said the truck had just started away from a traffic light and was traveling no more than 10 mph when it hit the SUV.

Williams, owner of A2Z Auto Service at 4356 North Cobb Parkway, said he saw Roberts get out of his 2004 black Dodge Ram pickup and run toward the accident scene wearing a leather shoulder holster.

"He looked official," Williams said, explaining that he thought Roberts might be a plain-clothes police officer. "He hollered at [the carjacker], 'Stay where you are. Stay where you are.'"

The carjacker ran toward a Raceway gas station on the corner and Roberts chased him. He told police the man turned a gun toward him, and he had to do something.

"I shot and killed a man today," Roberts told WAGA-TV. "I don't feel good about it, but if I hadn't have done something somebody else would have died."

Williams said he heard at least four, perhaps five, gunshots.

"He [the carjacker] was five feet in front of me when he got hit," Williams said. "On TV, all that flailing around that goes on is not what happened. He dropped like a sack of potatoes."

Monday night Cobb police identified the dead man as Brian Clark, 25, who has family in Acworth. Police did not say whether Clark lived in the area.

No charges were filed against the cement truck driver, who was not identified.

Police questioned Roberts, who they said was not an off-duty officer, before releasing him without filing charges.

"All I can say right now is to offer my condolences of the family of the woman," Roberts said when reached at his home Monday night in Acworth. "I'm postponing any comments just for a few days," he added, saying he was acting on legal advice.

Boyd's family could not be reached Monday.

Police are still unsure where the carjacking began, Pierce said. They are tracing possible routes from Allatoona Truck Rental, the business Boyd operated on Cherokee Street in Acworth, according to public records. Police said she left her office shortly after arriving there Monday morning. The first 911 call on the crash and shooting came in about 9:30 a.m.

Police also were investigating the possibility that the carjacker's gun had been taken in a robbery, rape and carjacking in Acworth last Tuesday, said Cobb robbery squad Lt. Tom Arnold.

"We're looking into that and whether the suspect in this assault is the same as in last week's attack in Acworth," Arnold said.

Acworth police spokesman Wayne Dennard said his department also is investigating the possibility that the man killed Monday morning was the suspect in a rape last Tuesday.

In last week's attack a woman was assaulted as she left home and was forced inside, where she was beaten and raped before being forced to drive to a nearby bank to get money from an ATM, Dennard said. The woman instead ran inside the bank and her assailant drove away in her car, which was later found abandoned, he said.

Late Monday, Boyd's SUV was driven on a flatbed into the Cobb crime lab impound building next to the medical examiner's office where the bodies of Boyd and her assailant were taken, Arnold said.

Fingerprints were taken from the dead man Monday, Arnold said. Autopsies on Boyd and the man are to be conducted today. Police will compare the dead man's fingerprints and DNA to evidence recovered from last week's attack, he said.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/0905/13carjacking.html

Thursday, September 08, 2005
Taking the Chinese at their word

Michael Pillsbury, a scion of the Pillsbury family, has translated volumes of Chinese strategic thought, from ancient to modern. He is a key influencer behind recent moves to beef up the Pacific Command in order to deal with potential contingencies involving China:
Michael Pillsbury, influential Pentagon adviser and former China lover, believes most Americans have China all wrong. They think of the place as an inherently gentle country intent on economic prosperity.

In that camp he lumps the lower ranks of the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, most U.S. investors and the majority of American China scholars, whom he chides as "panda huggers." Mr. Pillsbury says his mission is to assure that the Defense Department doesn't fall into the same trap.

"Beijing sees the U.S. as an inevitable foe, and is planning accordingly," warns the 60-year-old China expert. "We'd be remiss not to take that into account."

Mr. Pillsbury's 35-year China odyssey, from fondness to suspicion, parallels Washington's own hot and cold relations with Beijing -- from the diplomatic warming of the 1970s, through the shock and disillusionment of the post-Tiananmen Square era, to today's growing economic and political tensions. That's hardly a coincidence: Whether in public or in the policy-making shadows, Mr. Pillsbury has been a persistent force in shaping official American perceptions of a nation increasingly seen as the world's fastest-rising power.

Washington these days is a welter of emotions on China, many of them heightened by the recent furor over Cnooc Ltd.'s failed bid to buy American oil company Unocal Corp. President Bush came to office calling China a "strategic competitor." He now calls relations with China "good" but "complex." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has lately taken a dimmer view of China than her predecessor, Colin Powell, saying it remains unclear whether China will play a positive role in the world.

Thanks in part to Mr. Pillsbury's nudging, the Pentagon has staked out a particularly wary view of Beijing's global intentions. "We must start with the acknowledgement, at least, that we are unprepared to understand Chinese thinking," Mr. Pillsbury says. "And then we must acknowledge that we are facing in China what may become the largest challenge in our nation's history."

A lanky patrician with bright blue eyes, combed-back gray hair and a ready laugh, Mr. Pillsbury is known around the Pentagon as the Sphinx. Independently wealthy, he spends most days working in his two-story brownstone near the Capitol. He appears on no public Defense Department roster, and top officials decline to speak on the record about his work, noting that he is merely one of hundreds of paid consultants.

Yet Mr. Pillsbury, a fluent Mandarin speaker and author of three esoteric books on Chinese military strategy, has become one of the Pentagon's most influential advisers on China, with a direct line to many of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top aides.

After decades spent nurturing contacts within China's military, Mr. Pillsbury has amassed mounds of Chinese-language military texts and interviewed their authors to get a grip on China's long-term military aims. His conclusion has rattled many in Washington: China sees the U.S. as a military rival.

"Mike's core insight has been to plumb the subterranean anti-American feelings within China's military," says Daniel Blumenthal, a China specialist at the Defense Department until late last year and now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "He takes the Chinese at their word, and that has given him real influence within the Pentagon."

Mr. Rumsfeld has sharpened his posture on China in recent months. In June, he ruffled feathers in Asia when he used an annual security forum in Singapore to charge that China's military buildup could upset the region's delicate security balance. The Pentagon then upped the ante with a report warning that the Chinese military nurtures ambitions well beyond defending its historical claim to Taiwan.

The report laid out five "pathways" that could lead China to develop "more assertive foreign and security policies" or even provoke small wars to secure its growing energy needs. U.S. China experts noted that these and other passages seemed lifted straight from Mr. Pillsbury's scholarly work.

The Chinese government disputes Mr. Pillsbury's assessments, as well as the Pentagon's assertion that Beijing is dramatically increasing its military spending. Asked to comment on Mr. Pillsbury, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement that "any words or actions that fabricate and drum up China's military threat are detrimental to regional peace and stability."

Mr. Pillsbury's numerous critics call him a charming but combative China hawk whose work has overblown the thoughts and writings of a small cadre of Chinese military officials. Even admirers note the intensity with which he defends his views. "Michael has played a singularly important role in surfacing Chinese attitudes toward the U.S.," says Kurt Campbell, the Pentagon's top Asia hand during the Clinton administration. "But as with all brilliance, there is also a touch of madness."

Chu Shulong, a leading scholar on U.S.-China relations at Tsinghua University's Institute of Strategic Studies in Beijing, questions Mr. Pillsbury's conclusions. "All these ideas of the rising power and inevitable conflict, I'm afraid, are very out of date," he says, asserting that China is above all intent on assuring its economic well-being.

Mr. Pillsbury, who has nurtured ties with the Chinese military since the early 1970s, insists he remains open-minded. "My core doctrine is that the Chinese think differently than we think they do and that it's imperative we understand what motivates them," he says.

Chinese writings, Mr. Pillsbury says, show a military establishment obsessed with the inevitable decline of the U.S. and China's commensurate rise. On the economic front, he cautions that Americans shouldn't be taken in by the profusion of fast-food restaurants in China or other signs that make China look like the West. Beneath the growing trade ties with U.S., he says, runs a nationalistic fervor that could take American investors by surprise.

Mr. Pillsbury got the China bug as an undergraduate in the early 1960s, and later spent two years in Taiwan while earning a doctorate in Chinese studies from Columbia University. In late 1972, just months after President Nixon's famous trip to China, Mr. Pillsbury joined Rand Corp. as a 27-year-old China scholar. At the think tank, he began to do classified work for the U.S. government.

By then, Mr. Pillsbury had already made his first contacts with the Chinese military through a friendship with a People's Liberation Army general, Zhang Wutang, who was posted at the United Nations. He used the contact to understand PLA aspirations, and then passed along his conclusions to the Pentagon and the CIA in a series of secret memos. "I was giddy with the Confucian classics and all the magnificence of Chinese culture," he says.

He earned his first acclaim -- and a handwritten letter from then California Gov. Ronald Reagan -- with a 1975 essay in Foreign Policy magazine urging the U.S. to deter Moscow by establishing military and intelligence ties with China. At the time, that idea was almost scandalous. Later, under Presidents Carter and Reagan, such liaisons became a standard part of U.S.-China relations.

Mr. Pillsbury came slowly to what he calls his epiphany on China. Through the Reagan and first Bush administrations, he hopped between jobs at the Pentagon and the Senate, working to enhance military and intelligence cooperation with Beijing. In the 1980s, the U.S. began selling China powerful new torpedoes, upgrades for its jet fighters and advanced electronics for artillery -- arms sales that officials say Mr. Pillsbury helped push.

Then in early May 1989, Mr. Pillsbury flew to Beijing for a low-key military mission, arriving just as the Tiananmen protests picked up steam. He was unsettled by the ruthless crackdown that ensued, and also by how Chinese authorities blamed the U.S. for helping foment the dissent. "I was stunned," he says. "Even some friends in the Chinese military that I'd known for years began to describe us as a mortal enemy, an evil force."

Following Tiananmen, Mr. Pillsbury's conclusions on China became notably darker. In one 1993 study, he noted: "China has the advantage that many experts on Chinese affairs...testify soothingly that China today is a satisfied power which deeply desires a peaceful environment in which to develop its economy. They put the burden of proof on others, defying pessimists to prove that China may ever become hypernationalistic or aggressive."

An inveterate free-lancer, Mr. Pillsbury has never had to worry about steady employment. He's a member of the Pillsbury flour family, and his wealth has allowed him to pursue his research despite a knack for championing unpopular causes and for landing in political scrapes. Once, while helping funnel weapons to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan and Angola in the 1980s, he lost and regained his security clearance amid allegations of leaking secret information to the press.

Mr. Pillsbury has also avidly collected high-level protectors, counting Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and retired North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms among his patrons. His long-time mentor and current employer is the Pentagon's Andrew Marshall, a mercurial figure who at 83 still runs the department's long-term planning shop, the Office of Net Assessment.

In early 1995, Mr. Marshall sent Mr. Pillsbury to Beijing to gather Chinese military writings. The Pentagon by then was promoting a new generation of heavily computerized military hardware, and Mr. Marshall wanted to see what the Chinese made of this so-called revolution in military affairs.

Mr. Pillsbury interviewed dozens of authors, and returned after several trips with crates of books and journals, more than 500 volumes in all. The haul formed the core of his first two books, both published by the Pentagon's National Defense University.

Hardly light reading, the books got glowing reviews from several neoconservative thinkers, including Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld's former top aide and now president of the World Bank.

In his 1997 "Chinese Views of Future Warfare," Mr. Pillsbury portrays a military hierarchy fascinated with information warfare and the need for weapons systems to deliver "acupuncture" strikes and take out satellites. A particular obsession: what he claims to be the Chinese pursuit of "shashoujian," or a secret "assassin's weapon" that China can use to surprise a more powerful opponent.

"Mike can make a good case that the Chinese are developing submarines to sink our aircraft carriers or missiles to take out our satellites," says James Lilly, a former CIA station chief who served as ambassador to China in the early 1990s. "His whole point is, 'Pay attention. Listen to what they are saying.'" China's long-term strategy, Mr. Pillsbury argues, is to amass its strengths while attracting as little attention as possible.

He is increasingly convinced that China's military thinkers and strategists derive much of their guidance and inspiration from China's Warring States period, an era of pre-unification strife about 2,300 years ago. This is the thesis of his latest book, "The Future of China's Ancient Strategy," which the Pentagon plans to publish this fall. Its core assertion is that China's history and culture posit the existence of a "hegemon" -- these days, the United States -- that must be defeated over time.

After President Bush took office in 2001, officials in the Defense Department were quick to embrace Mr. Pillsbury's warnings on China. His prominence became abundantly clear when China's then-vice president, Hu Jintao, stopped by the Pentagon in May 2002 to visit Secretary Rumsfeld.

The State Department had opposed the meeting, arguing that the Defense Department was not the proper place for the visit of a soon-to-be president of China. When Mr. Hu's party arrived, Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed the State Department interpreter and had Mr. Pillsbury do the job instead.

Defense Department officials, while declining to elaborate, say that Mr. Pillsbury is now being considered for a full-time post at the Pentagon.

Chinese officials are also keeping tabs on Mr. Pillsbury. In June, the Communist Party's People's Daily tagged the China expert as the main force behind the Pentagon's recent report on the Chinese military. "Mike Pillsbury always sits beside Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld," at policy sessions on China, the story said.

I've been shocked at what seems to me to be extra legal confiscation of firearms in New Orleans. Indeed, I was left agog by a photo published in yesterday's Washington Post where two SWAT garbed men identified as "drug enforcement officers" armed with sub-machine guns were using entry tools to force open a door of a private residence so they could "search for weapons."

I've heard a quote over the years to the effect that no urban area is more than 48 hours away from food riots. It also seems no jurisdiction is more than 72 hours away from the suspension of all constitutional protections by extra legal methods.

[David Kopel, September 9, 2005 at 9:57pm]
New Orleans Gun Confiscation is Blatantly Illegal:
On Monday, I'll have an article on the New Orleans gun confiscation on Reason.com. But there's one part of the story that's too important to wait: the confiscation is plainly illegal. I realize that there are plausible arguments that the house-to-house break-ins and gun-point confiscations violate the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, as well as numerous provisions of the Louisiana Constitution, including the right to arms. Indeed, the confiscations are inconsistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and with natural law. But my point is much more specific. The particular Louisiana statute which allows emergency controls on firearms also clearly disallows the complete prohibition being imposed by the New Orleans chief of police.

The relevant statute is La. Stat., title 14, ? 329.6. It provides:

?329.6. Proclamation of state of emergency; conditions therefor; effect thereof
A. During times of great public crisis, disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency within the territorial limits of any municipality or parish, or in the event of reasonable apprehension of immediate danger thereof, and upon a finding that the public safety is imperiled thereby, the chief executive officer of any political subdivision or the district judge, district attorney, or the sheriff of any parish of this state, or the public safety director of a municipality, may request the governor to proclaim a state of emergency within any part or all of the territorial limits of such local government. Following such proclamation by the governor, and during the continuance of such state of emergency, the chief law enforcement officer of the political subdivision affected by the proclamation may, in order to protect life and property and to bring the emergency situation under control, promulgate orders affecting any part or all of the territorial limits of the municipality or parish:

(1) Establishing a curfew and prohibiting and/or controlling pedestrian and vehicular traffic, except essential emergency vehicles and personnel;

(2) Designating specific zones within which the occupancy and use of buildings and the ingress and egress of vehicles and persons shall be prohibited or regulated;

(3) Regulating and closing of places of amusement and assembly;

(4) Prohibiting the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages;

(5) Prohibiting and controlling the presence of persons on public streets and places;

(6) Regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of firearms, other dangerous weapons and ammunition;

(7) Regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of explosives and flammable materials and liquids, including but not limited to the closing of all wholesale and retail establishments which sell or distribute gasoline and other flammable products;

( Regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of sound apparatus, including but not limited to public address systems, bull horns and megaphones.

(9) Prohibiting the sale or offer for sale of goods or services within the designated emergency area for value exceeding the prices ordinarily charged for comparable goods and services in the same market area at, or immediately before, the time of the state of emergency. However, the value received may include reasonable expenses and a charge for any attendant business risk in addition to the cost of the goods and services which necessarily are incurred in procuring the goods and services during the state of emergency, pursuant to the provisions of R.S. 29:701 through 716.

B. Such orders shall be effective from the time and in the manner prescribed in such orders and shall be published as soon as practicable in a newspaper of general circulation in the area affected by such order and transmitted to the radio and television media for publication and broadcast. Such orders shall cease to be in effect five days after their promulgation or upon declaration by the governor that the state of emergency no longer exists, whichever occurs sooner; however, the chief law enforcement officer, with the consent of the governor, may extend the effect of such orders for successive periods of not more than five days each by republication of such orders in the manner hereinabove provided.

C. All orders promulgated pursuant to this section shall be executed in triplicate and shall be filed with the clerk of court of the parish affected and with the secretary of state of this state.

D. During any period during which a state of emergency exists the proclaiming officer may appoint additional peace officers or firemen for temporary service, who need not be in the classified lists of such departments. Such additional persons shall be employed only for the time during which the emergency exists.

E. During the period of the existence of the state of emergency the chief law enforcement officer of the political subdivision may call upon the sheriff, mayor, or other chief executive officer of any other parish or municipality to furnish such law enforcement or fire protection personnel, or both, together with appropriate equipment and apparatus, as may be necessary to preserve the public peace and protect persons and property in the requesting area. Such aid shall be furnished to the chief law enforcement officer requesting it insofar as possible without withdrawing from the political subdivision furnishing such aid the minimum police and fire protection appearing necessary under the circumstances. In such cases when a state of emergency has been declared by the governor pursuant to R.S. 29:724 et seq., all first responders who are members of a state or local office of homeland security and emergency preparedness, including but not limited to medical personnel, emergency medical technicians, persons called to active duty service in the uniformed services of the United States, Louisiana National Guard, Louisiana Guard, Civil Air Patrol, law enforcement and fire protection personnel acting outside the territory of their regular employment shall be considered as performing services within the territory of their regular employment for purposes of compensation, pension, and other rights or benefits to which they may be entitled as incidents of their regular employment. Law enforcement officers acting pursuant to this Section outside the territory of their regular employment have the same authority to enforce the law as when acting within the territory of their own employment.

F. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Section, except in an imminent life threatening situation nothing herein shall restrict any uniformed employee of a licensed private security company, acting within the scope of employment, from entering and remaining in an area where an emergency has been declared. The provisions of this Subsection shall apply if the licensed private security company submits a list of employees and their assignment to be allowed into the area, to the Louisiana State Board of Private Security Examiners, which shall forward the list to the chief law enforcement office of the parish and, if different, the agency in charge of the scene.

First, there are the procedural issues. According to subsection B, emergency orders must be published in a newspaper in the jurisdiction; the Times-Picayune is heroically publishing on-line, but I did not find any evidence, on Friday night, of any publication of the gun confiscation order, whose implementation had already begun on Thursday. According to subsection C, an emergency order must also be filed with the court in the relevant parish (impossible under current conditions), and with the Secretary of State (whose office in Baton Rouge is entirely functional). The Secretary's website gives no indication that a gun confiscation order has been filed.

The more serious issue is the substantive one. The emergency statute creates authority for "prohibiting" some things, and for "regulating" other things. The statute uses "prohibiting" in subsections (A)4, 5, and 9. The statute uses "regulating" in sections (A)3, 6, 7, and 8. Quite clearly the legislature meant to distinguish "prohibiting" authority from "regulating" authority. In the context of the statute, it is not plausible to claim that "prohibiting" means the same as "regulating."

"Prohibiting" authority applies to the sale of alcohol, presence on public streets, and the sale of goods or services at excessive prices. "Regulating" authority applies to firearms, flammable materials, and sound devices (such as megaphones). The "regulating" authority is undoubtedly broad. But it is not equivalent to "prohibiting." The statute does not authorize the New Orleans Police--abetted by the National Guard and the U.S. Marshalls--to break into homes, point guns at people, and confiscate every single private firearm--or every single private bullhorn or private cigarette lighter.

Yet New Orleans' lawless superintendant of police, P. Edwin Compass, has declared, "No one is allowed to be armed. We're going to take all the guns."

The Compass order appears to be plainly illegal. Under section 1983 of the federal Civil Rights law, any government employee who assists in the illegal confiscation would appear to be personally liable to a civil lawsuit. Moreover, higher-ranking officials--such as the National Guard officers who have ordered their troops to participate in the confiscation--would seem to be proper subjects for impeachment or other removal from office (and attendant forfeiture of pensions), depending on the procedures of their particular state.

All police officers, National Guard troops, and U.S. Marshals take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws. It appears that carrying out an illegal order to confiscate lawfully-owned firearms from homes would be inconsistent with the oath, contrary to sworn duty, and perhaps a criminal act.


UPDATE: Orin's response to my post (above) contains several misunderstandings, in my view:

1. The most serious problem is that he reads the power of "regulating and controlling" as equivalent to the power of "prohibiting and controlling." By his theory, the Louisiana legislature could just as well have said "controlling" instead of "prohibiting and controlling" and the legislature still would have granted the power of prohibiting. In an abstract semantic sense, Orin's theory is not implausible. But the Louisiana legislature obviously used the words more precisely; the repeated shifts from "regulating" to "prohibitting" plainly show that the two words are not identical, and that adding "and controlling" after each word does not create identical phrases. If the Louisiana legislature meant to convey the same powers over each of the items in subsection (A), the legislature would have used the same operative words in each subsection.

2. He's right that the statute doesn't specify whether proper publication and filing are necessary for the emergency orders to be lawful. (And as my original post indicated, it's not absolutely certain that proper publication and filing have not occured, although it would be odd for the Louisiana Secretary of State not to post the filing of such an important order.) At least in some circumstances, strict adherence to the provisions of subsections (B) and (C) would be impossible. For example, the Secretary of State's office might be closed; indeed, the courts in Orleans Parish are currently closed. However, if the police chief failed to file the proper notice with the Secretary of State, even when the Secretary of State's office is open, the failure to file indicates, at the least, a disregard on the part of the chief for proper legal procedure.

3. Note subsection (B)'s rule that "Such orders shall be effective from the time and in the manner prescribed in such orders... Such orders shall cease to be in effect five days after their promulgation..." Has the police chief ever promulgated a proper emergency order about firearms? Sending police officers out to confiscate guns is not "promulgation." For the order to be valid, there must, at least, be some form of proper order to the public, not merely to the police. The "promulgation" must, at the least, include a date on which the order goes into effect, because a legal start date is necessary to calculate the automatic expiration date five days thereafter. It seems unlikely that a press conference merely announcing--after the confiscations and break-ins have already begun--the confiscations are taking place, consistutes the promulgation of an "order." The only Louisiana case law definitions of "promulgate" come from election law cases; they rely on the dictionary definition of "promulgate" as "To make known or announce officially and formally to the public." The cases further specify that "promulgate" should be understood in its specific statutory context. E.g., LeCompte v. Board of Sup'rs of Elections of Terrebonne Parish, 331 So.2d 173 (La. App. 1976). And it appears that the chief of police has not complied with any of the statute's specific standards for promulgation (newspaper, parish court, Secretary of State).

4. Violation of a person's state constitutional right to keep and bear arms is a violation of her 14th Amendment rights, and gives rise to a cause of action under section 1983. Kellogg v. City of Gary, 562 N.E.2d 685, 696 (Ind. 1990):
For all of the foregoing reasons, we now hold there is a state created right to bear arms which includes the right to carry a handgun with a license, provided that all of the requirements of the Indiana Firearms Act are met. This right is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is both a property and liberty interest for purposes of ? 1983.
If the confiscation of firearms is illegal under Louisiana statute, then the confiscation is very likely a violation of the right to arms under the Louisiana constitution. Moreover, pursuant to United States v. Emerson, the Second Amendment is recognized as an individual right in the Fifth Circuit, which includes Louisiana. The Second Amendment, even if unincorporated, would be the basis of a section 1983 claim against any federal employees involved in the confiscation. Also, the warrantless entry into homes and illegal confiscation of property might give rise to section 1983 claims premised on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

5. In response to some of the issues raised by comments on related posts...the President of the United States probably has the power, as Commander in Chief, to order the confiscation of firearms from areas in actual rebellion, following a proclamation of martial law. Martial law has not been declared. The "standard of scrutiny" question for the deprivation of state or federal constitutional rights is irrelevant here; the question would be relevant if there were a challenge to the constitutionality of the Louisiana emergency statute. When the police chief exercises power which he was never granted by law, then his act is ultra vires, and necessarily illegal.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_09_04-2005_09_10.shtml

As fun as it is to whup on Bush--accusing him of all manner of nefarious schemes when not naming him an utter dunce--my take is that there is plenty of blame to go around. Think Krauthhammer does an effective job of blame triage here, though I'd move his final point about the American people up a notch or two.

Assigning blame
Charles Krauthammer

September 9, 2005


WASHINGTON -- In less enlightened times, there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews).

     A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2) the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn sinner-in-chief George W. Bush.

     This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the evacuation of New Orleans is not that National Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans, but that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration budget requests for New Orleans flood control during the five Bush years exceed that of the five preceding Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing revenues would have been spent wisely by Congress, targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and reconstruction would have been completed in time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when you realize that, as The Washington Post notes, ``the levees that failed were already completed projects."

     Let's be clear. The author of this calamity was, first and foremost, Nature (or if you prefer, Nature's God). The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in descending order of culpability by the following:

     1. The mayor of New Orleans. He knows the city. He knows the danger. He knows that during Hurricane Georges in 1998, the use of the Superdome was a disaster and fully two-thirds of the residents never got out of the city. Nothing was done. He declared a mandatory evacuation only 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. He did not even declare a voluntary evacuation until the day before that, at 5 p.m. At that time, he explained that he needed to study his legal authority to call a mandatory evacuation and was hesitating to do so lest the city be sued by hotels and other businesses.

     2. The Louisiana governor. It's her job to call up the National Guard and get it to where it has to go. Where the Guard was in the first few days is a mystery. Indeed, she issued an authorization for the National Guard to commandeer school buses to evacuate people on Wednesday afternoon -- more than two days after the hurricane hit and after much of the fleet had already drowned in its parking lots.

     3. The head of FEMA. Late, slow and in way over his head. On Thursday he says on national television that he didn't even know there were people in the Convention Center, when anybody watching television could see them there destitute and desperate. Maybe in his vast bureaucracy he can assign three 20-year-olds to watch cable news and give him updates every hour on what in hell is going on.

     4. The president. Late, slow and simply out of tune with the urgency and magnitude of the disaster. The second he heard that the levees had been breached in New Orleans, he should have canceled his schedule and addressed the country on national television to mobilize it both emotionally and physically to assist in the disaster. His flyover on the way to Washington was the worst possible symbolism. And his Friday visit was so tone-deaf and politically disastrous that he had to fly back three days later.

     5. Congress. Now as always playing holier-than-thou. Perhaps it might ask itself who created the Department of Homeland Security in the first place. The congressional response to all crises is the same -- rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add one extra layer. The last four years of DHS have been spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and real estate) instead of, say, a workable plan for as predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane.

     6. The American people. They have made it impossible for any politician to make any responsible energy policy over the last 30 years -- but that is a column for another day. Now is not the time for constructive suggestions. Now is the time for blame, recriminations and sheer astonishment. Mayor Nagin has announced that, as bodies are still being found and as a public health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels. Asked if it was appropriate to party in these circumstances, he responded: ``New Orleans is a party town. Get over it.'

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
What Michael Moore and Liberals Don?t (and Will Never) Understand About the Second Amendment
Armed citizens protecting their neighborhoods from marauders. [link]

Some of the most heartening tales coming out of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are the tales of Americans standing up and taking responsibility for their own safety and survival rather than whining about ?the government? not taking care of them.

The Washington Post reports that in Popps Ferry Landing, a neighborhood near Biloxi, Mississippi, the local neighborhood watch is keeping an armed night watch to prevent looters from invading the neighborhood. Following the looting of the local Dollar Store, neighbors who very rarely spoke to each other, got together to protect their own. They?re not going out hunting down anyone; they?re just camping out at their houses with their constitutionally protected firearms preventing the roving bands of criminals from destroying their peaceful middle class neighborhood.

It is times such as these, for which the Second Amendment is so important. In the aftermath of the greatest natural disaster in the history of this nation, it is the citizen himself that must stand in the breach of the wall of civilization, created by the storm and the consequent disorganization and lack of police presence, to protect himself from the anarchy which reigns in the world outside. These are the minute men of the 21st Century. These are ordinary middle class men, plumbers, engineers, managers, carpenters, and salesmen who have gotten out of their easy chairs and off their sofas, gone out into their neighborhood and introduced themselves to their neighbors. They have, in this time of danger decided, not to wait around to become a victim and then whine about why our government hasn?t done something to protect them, but to take responsibility for their own safety. Our Founding Fathers would not be proud of these men they would merely nod their heads in acknowledgement of men doing what should be expected of them.

It is precisely this for which the Second Amendment was designed. I know it?s difficult for Liberals to understand, but as we are seeing currently, we can?t always depend on the police. The Second Amendment is not, much to the chagrin of Liberals like Michael Moore, Al Gore, and John Kerry, about a person?s right to hunt; it is about the American citizen?s right to feel safe in their own residence. This fact which so sadly escaped the two last Democrat candidates for President is what made the images of John Kerry traipsing around in borrowed jacket with borrowed gun attempting to look like a hunter so hysterical to the gun owners of America. The N.R.A. is not about arming criminals like Michael Moore has inappropriately and inaccurately tried to portray in his crassly exploitive movie ?Bowling for Columbine,? it is about educating the American citizen on the rights and responsibilities of gun ownership, the proper use and care of those firearms, and the protection, from those who would usurp those rights under the misapprehension that a gun-free state is a safe state, of those rights as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

It is true that guns are designed for the purpose of killing. They are the most efficient form of killing that the average citizen has available to them. They are also the most effective form of self defense the average citizen has available to them. In their absence, individuals, men, women, and children are at greater risk. To an unarmed man, alone on a road or in his house, a group of four or five (or even a couple) burly men intent on evil represent a real life threatening situation; to an armed man, or women, properly trained in the use of firearms, they become a manageable threat. In a society in which the criminal frequently has more rights than the victim, being armed should be, as the Second Amendment intends, an untouchable right. Carrying a firearm, whether concealed of openly, should not only be allowed, it should be encouraged. The fact of the matter is, the better armed the citizens of a community, the lower the crime rate, particularly the violent crime rate, of that community. Those cities like Washington D.C., New York, and possibly soon to be San Francisco, have the highest per capita violent crime rate in the nation.

As can be seen in the Popps Landing example, total dependence upon government agencies for our safety can quickly turn into a liability, if those agencies are overwhelmed by circumstances beyond anyone?s control. At a time when police response to emergency calls can be five to ten minutes (if not much longer) it is ludicrous for the American people to be forced to rely on the government for their protection, as the anti-gun lobby would have us do. That is a real path to the imprisonment of the average citizen inside their houses. In Britain, certainly there is a lower murder rate than in the U.S.A., but the overall violent crime rate is considerably higher than in America. Groups like Handgun Control International, Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and Common Cause would have Americans surrender their rights to self-defense for the illusory concept of complete safety. There is no such thing as complete safety, and a person can be as easily and more surely killed by a knife as a gun. It has been stated by the Second Amendment lobbying groups so often as to become a trite saying, ?if guns are outlawed; only outlaws will have guns.? Trite maybe, but also true, so true that it becomes a profound statement of universal truth. By definition, an outlaw, a law breaker, a criminal, does not care whether or not he is breaking the law by carrying a firearm. If a person has criminal intent, he will find a means to implement it.

These people, people of the left like Mr. Moore, are the same people who would have had us unilaterally disarm during the cold war in the face of a growing Soviet Nuclear threat. President Reagan, proved how mistaken the unilateralist?s position was by presiding over the first stages of the complete dismantlement of the Soviet Union. Unilateral disarmament in the face of a known threat is an invitation to victim hood. It is only by show of strength that threat can be countered. This is not some new ?off-the-wall? concept, this is human nature at its very core. The anti-gun forces exhibit the same Pollyannaish naivet? of human nature that the Marxists do. There are and always will be predators in our society. It is the human nature of some to covet more than their ?fair share.? The entire concept of ?fair share? is faulty thinking based on the mistaken concept that material wealth is a zero sum game. It is also human nature for some in our society to desire that for which they are not willing to work. They are the predators which must be confronted in everyday life. If relying on the police was a successful concept, there would be no crime. No one would have to lock their door and a woman walking downtown after dark by herself would neither be uncommon nor foolish. Since not even the most rabid Liberal in society would consider that situation reasonable behavior, the basic premise of their arguments against guns is false. I dare say that Sarah Brady would not feel comfortable walking the dark alley ways of D.C. even though there are extremely strong anti-gun laws in place there.

There are no reasonable arguments in favor of gun control, only emotional ones. That is why one so often hears bogus statistics coming out of the anti-gun lobbyists. Thankfully, most Americans understand this concept and reject the irrational policies recommended by the gun haters. You will also hear them claim that they are not anti-gun, rather that they are only seeking to impose ?reasonable? restraints on gun ownership. This is an evolutionary principle for them brought about through their numerous defeats, by gun owners, in their legislative endeavors. You will often hear them use the phrase ?I am a hunter myself...? or ?We?re not talking about taking away a hunter?s guns...? invariably followed by the word ?but.? They then will use the phrase, ?reasonable people,? or ?reasonable restrictions,? so as to make it clear that only an ?unreasonable? person would object to their efforts to restrict gun ownership.

In a society of law-abiding citizens, we have nothing to fear from an unrestricted right to gun ownership. Law-abiding citizens are by definition going to obey the law. By restricting their ?right to keep and bare arms,? we only encourage law breaking by those same citizens. Laws are intended to preserve freedoms, not restrict them. In committing a crime, someone is infringing on the rights and freedoms of another. In an armed society, those who would seek to impose their will on another are significantly less inclined to do so. It is for that reason, that the citizens of Popps Ferry Landing will not have to worry about having their property destroyed or stolen, their families killed or injured by marauding bands of criminals. And the authorities will not be additionally burdened in the exercising of their duties responding to this crisis.

An armed citizenry is a safe and fearless citizenry.
posted by Will Malven at 10:17 AM

The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization

Lieutenant Colonel James G. Lacey, U.S. Army Reserve

Proceedings, September 2005

Slender minarets with muezzins calling the faithful to prayer symbolize the stability and timelessness of the Muslim world. This one in Rabi'ah, a small town on the Iraqi-Syrian border, is a classic?and the Muslim faith is flourishing. Arabs, however, most of whom are Muslims, are not.

If a country wants to be on the winning side of history it first and foremost must get its grand strategy right. With that done, it can make any number of operational mistakes and weather many a setback and still walk away a winner. In the Cold War, our grand strategy of containing the Soviet Union eventually won the day despite many tribulations over the fifty years it was in place. Diplomat George Kennan's famous "X Article," anonymously published in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947, became the conceptual pillar of Cold War strategy and withstood a decades-long assault by critics until eventually vindicated by the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Was the containment theory hurt by the vitriol of its critics? I would argue the opposite is true. Criticism forced the supporters of containment theory to examine and hone their arguments. In order to properly answer their critics, supporters of containment were forced to continually evaluate their strategic models under regularly changing conditions. The end result was a strategy that proved adaptable to shifting circumstances and able to garner the support of the bulk of public opinion. Today, however, more and more of our strategic judgments are being built upon the untested edifice of two books: Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror and Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. While there have been a few critical reviews of both works, for the most part they have become the basic canon of 21st century strategic thought with very little serious negative commentary. In military publications and briefings these works are now cited repeatedly and uncritically as authoritative support for developing strategic concepts.

Both books paint a dismal global picture. Huntington argues that for centuries civilizations have been kept apart by distance and serious geographical obstacles. However, modern technologies are eroding these obstacles and as civilizations begin to interact on a more regular basis they will find each other so repugnant they will be unable to resist trying to slaughter one another. Bernard Lewis is not as pessimistic about the global environment. Rather, he focuses his dire warnings on just the Muslim world, which appears to him on an irreversible road to doom.

It amazes me that Huntington's theory of civilizational war ever gained the traction it did. I had always assumed that everyone would awake one day and discover Hindus were not planning the annihilation of the Mongols, that Africans were incapable of getting together to fight anyone, and that Europeans have lost the will to fight about anything. Maybe, just maybe, some Arabs would like to take on their neighbors. But let's assume for a moment that all twenty-two Arab nations put aside their considerable differences and raise a military force to take on the world, what would that force look like? Well, with a combined GDP a bit less than Spain's, it probably would not amount to much. The combined conventional military power of a united Arab world is not likely to keep Pentagon planners up at night. Lewis, on the other hand, makes a good argument for the collapse of the Islamic world. Unfortunately, by accepting his thesis the United States is put in the unenviable position of confronting a religion in what may be a prolonged conflict-prone situation. Do we really want to make war on a religion? The major flaw in Lewis's argument, though, is in the title of his book. Islam is not in fact in a crisis state. From a purely religious point of view things have not looked this good for the Muslim faith in hundreds of years. Mosques are full, new adherents are pouring in, and the cash coffers are being filled with donations. If this is a religious crisis it is one most of the world's other faiths would envy.

A more accurate understanding of events leads to the conclusion that Arab, not Muslim, civilization is in a state of collapse, and it just happens that most Arabs are Muslims. In this regard, the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a collapse of Western Europe and not a crisis of Christianity. The next question is, how could the world have missed an entire civilization collapsing before its eyes? The simple answer is that no one alive today has ever seen it happen before. Well within living memory we have seen empires collapse and nation-state failure has become a regular occurrence, but no one in the West has witnessed the collapse of a civilization since the Dark Ages. Civilizational collapses take a long time to unfold and are easy to miss in the welter of daily events.

Interestingly, on the Arab League's website there is a paper that details all of the contributions made by Arab civilization. It is a long and impressive list, which unfortunately marks 1406 as the last year a significant contribution was made. That makes next year the 600th anniversary of the beginning of a prolonged stagnation, which began a dive into the abyss with the end of the Ottoman Empire. Final collapse has been staved off only by the cash coming in from a sea of oil and because of a few bright spots of modernity that have resisted the general failure.

Statistics tell an ugly story about the state of Arab civilization. According to the U.N.'s Arab Human Development Report:

There are 18 computers per 1000 citizens compared to a global average of 78.3.

Only 1.6% of the population has Internet access.

Less than one book a year is translated into Arabic per million people, compared to over 1000 per million for developed countries.

Arabs publish only 1.1% of books globally, despite making up over 5% of global population, with religious books dominating the market.

Average R&D expenditures on a per capita basis is one-sixth of Cuba's and less than one-fifteenth of Japan's.

The Arab world is embarking upon the new century burdened by 60 million illiterate adults (the majority are women) and a declining education system, which is failing to properly prepare regional youth for the challenges of a globalized economy. Educational quality is also being eroded by the growing pervasiveness of religion at all levels of the system. In Saudi Arabia over a quarter of all university degrees are in Islamic studies. In many other nations primary education is accomplished through Saudi-financed madrassas, which have filled the void left by government's abdication of its duty to educate the young.

In economic terms we have already commented that the combined weight of the Arab states is less than that of Spain. Strip oil out of Mideast exports and the entire region exports less than Finland. According to the transnational Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regional economic growth is burdened by declining rates of investment in fixed capital structure, an inability to attract substantial foreign direct investment, and declining productivity ? the economic trinity of disaster.

Economic stagnation coupled with rapid population growth is reducing living standards throughout the region, both comparatively and in real terms. In the heady days of the late 1970s oil boom, annual per-capita GDP growth of over 5% fueled high levels of expectations. GDP per-capita grew from $1,845 to $2,300. Today, after adjusting for inflation, it stands at $1,500, reflecting an overall decline in living standards over 30 years. Only sub-Saharan Africa has done worse. If oil wealth is subtracted from the calculations the economic picture for the mass of Arab citizens becomes dire.

Things are indeed bad in the Arab world and will get much worse.

This statement should not be read as mere opinion. While predictions of the future are usually fraught with peril, those based on demographics are, barring some unforeseen plague or truly catastrophic war, uncannily accurate. Using even the most optimistic assumption?that fertility rates drop by fifty percent in a generation?the respected Population Resource Center, based in Princeton, New Jersey, expects Arab populations to grow from 280 million to almost 460 million by 2020 and to over 600 million a generation later. On the face of it the Arab world is staring political and economic disaster in the face. Arab governments and institutions are already failing to meet basic human needs in many Arab countries. It is hard to imagine how they will cope with the stress of such a massive population increase.

The percentage of the population under age 15 is double that of Western Europe and those under age 24 make up 50% to 65% of Middle East countries?an astonishingly young population. This youth bulge is already beginning to rock the foundations of Islamic society. Upheaval and revolution are the likely results of a massive number of youth confronted by stagnating or collapsing economies as they enter adulthood.

A youth bulge has always correlated strongly with increased levels of violence within a society, from terrorism to war. Massive youth violence is predictably more likely when lack of economic opportunity stunts ambitions for a satisfying job, a good marriage, and a home. A 2004 study by The World Bank calls this combination of a youth bulge coupled with poor economic performance an "explosive combination." In socially and politically repressive societies, found throughout the Middle East, there are very few outlets for pent-up frustrations except for violence or immersion into religion?a combustible mixture. In the Middle East, it is evident that terrorism and especially suicide operations are a phenomenon closely associated with youth. Youthful involvement in terrorism can be viewed as the extreme end of a broader youthful attraction to violence more generally. Additionally, this attraction is being reinforced within a generation that is being radicalized by an environment featuring high levels of violence, radical religious ideology, and growing anti-Americanism.

One serious question that requires an answer is why youth are attracted to Islamic organizations, which to Western eyes appear to be extremely repressive to many of the aspirations and desires of typical young men and women? In a 2003 Brookings Institution paper, Graham Fuller, a senior resident consultant at the RAND Corporation, provides this answer:

. . . the religious activism of Islamism in the Muslim world is not politically conservative at all: it calls for change to the status quo that is broadly hated. Much of the youthful spirit of rebellion against the status quo can thus be readily harnessed by the Islamist movement, both violent and non-violent. They provide a channel for the expression of discontent, blessed and legitimized by powerful religious tradition that incorporates nationalist impulses as well. It is noteworthy that Islamism serves as a vehicle of protest everywhere except where it is in power, such as Iran and Sudan. It is the status quo that is the major target of anger. (Author's emphasis) A youth bulge is always destabilizing, but it can often be managed if a society is able to properly educate its youth and provide them with adequate economic opportunities at the end of the education process. Arab nations are failing in both areas.

As I see it, the overarching cause of civilizational collapse is that culture and institutions of that civilization can no longer adapt to external stresses. This assertion is grounded in my interpretation of the writings of Will Durant, Story of Civilization, John Roberts' The Rise of the West, and Fernand Braudel's A History of Civilizations. The tyrants and dictators who have long ruled the Arab world have proven unable to implement the changes required to reverse the trends of collapse. Unable to reverse economic and societal ills, and unresponsive to the mass of the Arab population, these rulers instituted polices of strong internal oppression, which further closed off Arab society from the adoption of new ideas and methods.

Populations that were unable to influence their governments found that some methods of expression were still allowed within the context of Islam. Working within this framework radicals found that they could shelter their activities within a religious infrastructure, while at the same time religious leaders realized that they were gaining enough strength to make a grasp for secular power. This was a struggle that went on in the West for a thousand years after the fall of Rome until finally won by secular authority during what is now called the Age of Reason.

Still, Islam is not the root cause of collapse. For instance, it has not stood in the way of economic advancement and societal adaptation in Asia. It is more accurate to say that fundamental failure of Arab culture is causing people to begin looking backwards at the golden age of their civilization. Two things ring out to them from those past centuries: Arabs were powerful when they were united and when their faith was new, vital, and fundamental.

A lot of the evidence that Huntington presents for his theory of civilizational war makes more sense when viewed through the prism of the collapse of Arab civilization. Global maneuvering that Huntington interprets as preparations for a new round of world conflict are in reality the spontaneous adjustments that other societies are making in reaction to the collapse of a neighboring civilization. By accepting that we are facing the collapse of Arab civilization we can, for the first time, create a grand strategic concept for success. We no longer have to engage in a war against terrorism, which is a method of fighting and not an enemy. Additionally, we now have a strategic explanation for what is going on that does not make Islam the culprit. Hence we do not have to fight a religious war to win.

The grand strategic concept that provides the best chance of success is the one that served us so well in the Cold War?containment. No matter what else we do we must position ourselves to contain the effects of the complete collapse of Arab civilization. Already 10 percent of the French population is from Muslim North Africa. Europe's ability to assimilate a larger flood of economic refugees is questionable. And mass migration is just one effect a total collapse will have. Containment will mean adopting and maintaining difficult policy choices, which include:

Working closely with the European nations to defend their southern border against the mass migration of tens of millions of destitute Arabs as well as armed confrontations with failing Arab states.

Renewing our close ties with Turkey and making that nation a bulwark against the effects of collapse.

Working to help modernize and integrate the Russian military into an enhanced European defense structure.

Ensuring China is a partner in this containment effort.

Propping up weak border states that are already dealing with the spillover effects of Arab collapse?such as Pakistan and the new Caucasus states. Assisting the Iranian popular will to establish a government not based on a religious oligarchy. The Persian people may form an eastern bulwark against collapse.

Plan for the security of critical resources even during possible upheavals and regional turmoil.

Spillover effects such as terrorist groups already evident in places like Indonesia and the Philippines must be eradicated or reversed. We need to be clear that this is not a failure of Islam. In this regard we must help Muslims outside of the Arab world find their own interpretations of their faith and not fall prey to those being espoused by the Arab world?Wahhabism.

None of the above policy prescriptions will be easy, nor can they be achieved overnight. Most of them require the support of other nations, which may be problematic. Many of these nations have not recognized the risks they face from Arab collapse and see no reason to take preemptive measures. It is easy to say that we need to work closely with Europe to secure its southern border. In reality, that task will be devilishly hard, not least because the Europeans appear very reluctant to take any measures to protect themselves that might give even a whiff of intolerance. Furthermore, American diplomacy, as of recent decades, has not shown it is up to accomplishing many of the recommended tasks. For instance, all attempts to engage Iran since the fall of the Shah have been a debacle. Unfortunately, as the Iranian nuclear crisis unfolds there is no indication we have gotten any better at it. Do we have the wherewithal to engender a democratic society in Iran and then to engage its support in our common interests? Can we deal with an increasingly autocratic and threatening Russia? Can we manage China's emergence as a superpower so that it can be peacefully integrated into the global political system? The answers to these questions are still unknown. However, because containment of a civilizational collapse cannot be done by the United States alone finding the right answers is critical.

By accepting that we need to contain the effects of a failing Arab civilization we are then free to adopt one of three basic approaches:

Attempt to accelerate the collapse and pick up the pieces, akin to letting an alcoholic hit bottom.

To contain the effects, but not to interfere with the fall for good or bad. Reverse the tide when and where we can.

For a number of ethical and practical reasons the third choice is the one that should and is most likely to be adopted, keeping in mind that resisting the macro-forces of historical change will not be easy.

By adopting the third option we can craft policies to improve economic conditions and help specific regions within the Arab world adapt to encroaching modernity. The United States must be able to spot shining lights in the Arab world and work to protect them even as we help to expand their influence. Discarding the theories of two men as eminent as Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis is not a matter to take lightly. History may even prove both men right and my analysis to be well off the mark. However, the almost blind acceptance now being given to these men's ideas is a dangerous trend. As military leaders build the strategic plans and policies that will guide our forces for a generation or more it is best to be skeptical of all underlying assumptions. This article is designed to strike at the foundation of the two most widely accepted arguments in the current forum of ideas. If they are correct and sturdy then my position will not topple them. In fact, like Kennan's X article they will be made stronger by having to defend themselves against criticism. If they are weak, then it is best to discard them now.

Lieutenant Colonel Lacey is a Washington-based writer focusing on defense and international affairs issues. He was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division during the war in Iraq. He served on active duty for a number of years and later edited journals on international finance.

Lessons of smaller states

By Richard W. Rahn
Published September 4, 2005
REYKJAVIK, Iceland.
    Why is this cold, rainy land with its stark volcanic landscape, without much in the way of natural resources, one of the wealthiest places on Earth?
    Small states, in the past, were most often poorer on a per capital income basis than large states, but in the last half-century many have become much richer then their large neighbors. Among the wealthiest places on the planet, in addition to the United States, we now find Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Denmark and Ireland, none with many natural resources.
    In a just-concluded meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Iceland, some leaders of small states that have developed very successful economies met with some of the worlds' leading free-market economists and policy institute professionals, partly to discuss what lessons the rest of the world can learn from these small states. Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia, was the principle architect of his country's remarkable economic transformation from impoverished vassal of the Soviet Union into one of the world's freest (No. 4 in the world according to the 2005 Index of Economic Freedom) and most dynamic economies. Mr. Laar said he succeeded by following the teachings of Nobel Prize-winning economists F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman.
    After obtaining freedom 15 years ago, Estonia rapidly moved to establish a rule of law, protect private property and create a sound currency. Estonia removed most price controls, discarded useless regulations, privatized most state-owned enterprises and established a free-trade regime. The result has been the largest percentage increase in real per capita incomes of any of the former communist states.
    Estonia has now moved on to create the world's first "e-government": Most government operations are on the Internet, and in electronic form. By moving away from bureaucrat paper, Estonis reduced corruption and cost and created much more transparency and accountability. All proposed laws are placed on the Internet before passage so any citizen can review and comment before they are voted upon.
    Former Iceland Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister David Oddsson detailed how he took a typical, economically stagnate, Scandinavian socialist welfare state and turned it into an economic tiger by privatizing state industries, freeing labor markets, and reforming the financial structure. Iceland has been engaged in a massive tax reduction (for instance, the corporate tax rate has been cut from 50 to only 18 percent, and the inheritance tax to a maximum 5 percent). Yet government revenues have steadily increased because of the resulting economic dynamism, and the national debt has fallen from 50 percent of gross domestic product to only 15 percent.
    One of their greatest success stories was moving from a pay-as-you-go social security system (like that of the U.S.) to a combination of a limited means-tested government system with a private inheritable system, giving Iceland one of the strongest and soundest systems in the world.
    Professor Victoria Curzon-Price of the University of Geneva in Switzerland and president of the Mont Pelerin Society argued Switzerland has succeeded because (with the exception of farming) it is mostly a free-trade nation, with strong fiscal and tax competition between cantons. Switzerland is a voluntary, direct democracy, federal contractual state made up of a couple dozen cantons divided on linguistic and religious lines and more than 3,000 communes -- i.e., small towns.
    Having most government power at local levels reduces friction among the various groups that make up Switzerland. It allows the people to decide if they wish to live in a commune with a large government and relatively high taxes, like Geneva, or in a low- tax, limited-government jurisdiction.
    In her brief for the Swiss system, Professor Curzon-Price argued "the splitting of political units into tiny elements" provides a "huge gain in terms of the legitimacy of the state." And, "a state obtains obedience in one of three ways: repression, bribery and consent. Most modern democratic states end up using, and abusing, the second of these (with the political class bribing marginal voters to maintain power)." Repression and bribery are costly, but neither is needed if the government can obtain the willing consent of the governed, which is best obtained by direct democracy within small political units.
    The lesson is that large states can obtain the economic gains small states have made by freeing up their economies. They also can gain greater democratic legitimacy and a more satisfied electorate by devolving power to states and localities.
     
    Richard W. Rahn is director general of the Center for Global Economic Growth, a project of the FreedomWorks Foundation.

Wow, the New York Times portraying armed citizens in a positive light, and I lived to see it.

Police and Owners Begin to Challenge Looters

By FELICITY BARRINGER and JERE LONGMAN
Published: September 1, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 31 - In a city shut down for business, the Rite Aid at Oak and South Carrollton was wide open on Wednesday. Someone had stolen a forklift, driven it four blocks, peeled up the security gate and smashed through the front door.

Louisiana State Police officers ride toward the French Quarter in New Orleans. One officer described an atmosphere of "nervous energy."
The young and the old walked in empty-handed and walked out with armfuls of candy, sunglasses, notebooks, soda and whatever else they could need or find. No one tried to stop them.

Across New Orleans, the rule of law, like the city's levees, could not hold out after Hurricane Katrina. The desperate and the opportunistic took advantage of an overwhelmed police force and helped themselves to anything that could be carried, wheeled or floated away, including food, water, shoes, television sets, sporting goods and firearms.

Many people with property brought out their own shotguns and sidearms. Many without brought out shopping carts. The two groups have moved warily in and out of each other's paths for the last three days, and the rising danger has kept even some rescue efforts from proceeding.

Because the New Orleans police were preoccupied with search and rescue missions, sheriff's deputies and state police from around Louisiana began to patrol the city, some holding rifles as they rolled through the streets in an armored vehicle.

But on Wednesday night, the mayor ordered about 1,500 city police officers, nearly the entire force, back to their traditional roles.

The looters "are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas," Mayor C. Ray Nagin told The Associated Press, "hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now."

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said she was "furious" about the looting.

"What angers me the most is disasters tend to bring out the best in everybody, and that's what we expected to see," Ms. Blanco said at a news conference. "Instead, it brought out the worst."

All sizes and types of stores, from Wal-Mart to the Rite Aid to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, turned into bazaars of free merchandise.

Some frightened homeowners took security into their own hands.

John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.

One said, "We want that generator," he recalled.

"I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum," Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. "They scattered."

He smiled and added, "You've heard of law west of the Pecos. This is law west of Canal Street."

Though no one excused the stealing, many officials were careful not to depict every looter as a petty thief.

"Had New York been closed off on 9/11, who can say what they would have done?" said Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, vice president of the New Orleans City Council. "When there's no food, no water, no sanitation, who can say what you'd do? People were trying to protect their children. I don't condone lawlessness, but this doesn't represent the generous people of New Orleans."

One woman outside a Sav-a-Center on Tchoupitoulas Street was loading food, soda, water, bread, peanut butter and canned food into the trunk of a gray Oldsmobile.

"Yes, in a sense it's wrong, but survival is the name of the game," said the woman, who would not identify herself. "I've got six grandchildren. We didn't know this was going to happen. The water is off. We're trying to get supplies we need."

Jimmy Field, one of the state's five public service commissioners, said supply and repair trucks were being slowed down by people looking for food and water. Some would not go on without police escorts.

"Right now we're hoping for more federal assistance to get the level of civil disturbance down," Mr. Field said.

One police officer was shot Tuesday trying to stop looting, but he was expected to survive.

An emergency medical vehicle that was taking a Baton Rouge police officer who had been shot last month from a hospital back to his hometown was shot at on the way out of New Orleans on Tuesday.

East Baton Rouge Parish officials agreed to send 20 buses with special weapons and tactics officers to help evacuate New Orleanians, but only if a state trooper was also placed on each bus. The plan was scuttled.

"I told them I don't mind committing drivers and vehicles, but I wasn't going to put our people in harm's way," said Walter Monsour, the chief administrative officer of the parish.

Besides the strain of having to rescue survivors, the police are bereft of much of their equipment, buildings and essential communications. The Police Department was scheduled to receive new radios on Wednesday night to coordinate its activities, said Lt. Col. Mark S. Oxley, a spokesman for the state police.

Charles C. Foti Jr., the Louisiana attorney general, said a temporary detention center and courthouse would be established somewhere outside New Orleans. "We will be ready to accept you in our system, and teach you about rules and order," Mr. Foti warned looters.

On Tuesday, the state police sent in 200 troopers trained in riot control, said Lt. Lawrence J. McLeary, a spokesman for the state police.

He said that the "nervous energy" in New Orleans reminded him of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "I've never seen anything like that in Louisiana," Lieutenant McLeary said.

With no officers in sight, people carried empty bags, shopping carts and backpacks through the door of the Rite Aid on Wednesday and left with them full. The forklift was still in the doorway. As they came and went, the looters nodded companionably to one another.

Paul Cosma, 47, who owns a nearby auto shop, stood outside it along with a reporter and photographer he was taking around the neighborhood. He had pistols on both hips.

Suddenly, he stepped forward toward a trio of young men and grabbed a pair of rusty bolt cutters out of the hands of one of them. The young man pulled back, glaring.

Mr. Cosma, never claiming any official status, eventually jerked the bolt cutters away, saying, "You don't need these."

The young man and his friends left, continuing the glare. A few minutes later, they returned and mouthed quiet oaths at Mr. Cosma, and his friend Art DePodesta, an Army veteran, who was carrying a shotgun and a pistol.

Mr. Cosma stared back, saying nothing. Between the two sides, a steady trickle of looters came and went, barely giving any of them a look.

Felicity Barringer reported from New Orleans for this article, and Jere Longman from Baton Rouge, La. Susan Saulny contributed reporting from Baton Rouge, and Joseph B. Treaster from New Orleans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01lawless.html

Timely analysis from Stratfor.

New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize

By George Friedman
September 01, 2005 22 30 GMT -- The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.
Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.
The ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, the Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A larger proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 57 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on.
A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.
The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.
The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.
There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.
The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.
What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.
The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time.
It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.
A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.
It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.
Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.
New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.
Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.

How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes
Larry Elder
September 1, 2005


Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Suddenly, her ex-husband -- against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order -- showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds.
 
This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? We know that in 2003, 12,548 people died through non-suicide gun violence, including homicides, accidents and cases of undetermined intent.

 UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as two-and-a-half or three million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number."

 Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms. That corresponds to approximately 400,000 of Kleck's estimated 2.5 million defensive gun uses. Kleck points out that if only one-tenth of the people were right about saving a life, the number of people saved annually by guns would still be at least 40,000.

 The Department of Justice's own National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study titled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," estimated that 1.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes every year. Although the government's figure estimated a million fewer people defensively using guns, the NIJ called their figure "directly comparable" to Kleck's, noting that "it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error." Furthermore, the NIJ reported that half of their respondents who said they used a gun defensively also admitted having done so multiple times a year -- making the number of estimated uses of self-defense with a gun 4.7 million times annually.

 Former assistant district attorney and firearms expert David Kopel writes, ". . . [W]hen a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery -- from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing -- produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success."

 What do "gun control activists" say?

 The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence's website displays this oft-quoted "fact": "The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns." Their web site fails to mention that Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the "expert" who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for failing to follow standard scientific procedures. According to The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Kellermann now concedes, "A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired," admitting that he failed to include such events in his original study. "Simply keeping a gun in the home," Kellermann says, "may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner." He adds, "It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide -- i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat."

 "More Guns, Less Crime" author John Lott points out that, in general, our mainstream media fails to inform the public about defensive uses of guns. "Hardly a day seems to go by," writes Lott, "without national news coverage of yet another shooting. Yet when was the last time you heard a story on the national evening news about a citizen saving a life with a gun? . . . An innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed. . . . ad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives."

 Americans, in part due to mainstream media's anti-gun bias, dramatically underestimate the defensive uses of guns. Some, after using a gun for self-defense, fear that the police may charge them for violating some law or ordinance about firearm possession and use. So many Americans simply do not tell the authorities.

 A gunned-down bleeding guy creates news. A man who spared his family by brandishing a handgun, well, that's just water-cooler chat.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20050901.shtml

Perhaps better filed under political rants, Derbyshire makes mincemeat of arguments that "intelligent design" should be taught as part of a science curriculum.



August 30, 2005, 8:23 a.m.
Teaching Science
The president is wrong on Intelligent Design.
John Derbyshire


Catching up on back news this past few days ? I was out of the country for the first two weeks of August ? I caught President Bush's endorsement of teaching Intelligent Design in public school science classes. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," President Bush told a reporter August 2, "so people can understand what the debate is all about."

This is Bush at his muddle-headed worst, conferring all the authority of the presidency on the teaching of pseudoscience in science classes. Why stop with Intelligent Design (the theory that life on earth has developed by a series of supernatural miracles performed by the God of the Christian Bible, for which it is pointless to seek any naturalistic explanation)? Why not teach the little ones astrology? Lysenkoism? Orgonomy? Dianetics? Reflexology? Dowsing and radiesthesia? Forteanism? Velikovskianism? Lawsonomy? Secrets of the Great Pyramid? ESP and psychokinesis? Atlantis and Lemuria? The hollow-earth theory? Does the president have any idea, does he have any idea, how many varieties of pseudoscientific flapdoodle there are in the world? If you are going to teach one, why not teach the rest? Shouldn't all sides be "properly taught"? To give our kids, you know, a rounded picture? Has the president scrutinized Velikovsky's theories? Can he refute them? Can you?

And every buncombe theory ? every one of those species of twaddle that I listed ? has, or at some point had, as many adherents as Intelligent Design. The hollow-earth theory was taken up by the Nazis and taught, as the Hohlweltlehre, in German schools. It still has a following in Germany today. Velikovsky's theories ? he believed that Jupiter gave birth to a giant comet which, after passing close to earth and causing the miracles of the Book of Exodus, settled down as the planet Venus ? were immensely popular in the 1950s and generated heated controversy, with angry accusations by the Velikovskians that they were being shut out by closed-minded orthodox astronomers determined to protect their turf, etc., etc. Lysenkoism was state doctrine in Stalin's Russia and was taught at the most prestigious universities. Expressing skepticism about it could get you shot. (Likewise with the bizarre linguistic theories of Stalin's prot?g? N.Y. Marr, who believed that every word in every human language derived from one of four basic elements, pronounced "sal," "ber," "yon," and "rosh." I tell you, the house of pseudoscience has many, many mansions.) Dianetics was rebranded as Scientology and is now a great force in the land ? try criticizing it, and you'll find out.

Nor is any of these theories lacking in a certain appeal, as Martin Gardner, from whose book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science I compiled that list, is charitable enough to point out. Of Lawsonomy ? "The earth is a huge organism operating by Suction and Pressure..." ? Gardner says generously: "This makes more sense than one might think." Pseudoscience is in fact a fascinating study, though as sociology, not as science. Gardner's book, now 50 years old, is still an excellent introduction, and great fun to read.

What, then, should we teach our kids in high-school science classes? The answer seems to me very obvious. We should teach them consensus science, and we should teach it conservatively. Consensus science is the science that most scientists believe ought to be taught. "Conservatively" means eschewing theories that are speculative, unproven, require higher math, or even just are new, in favor of what is well settled in the consensus. It means teaching science unskeptically, as settled fact.

Consider physics, for example. It became known, in the early years of the last century, that Newton's physics breaks down at very large or very tiny scales of distance, time, and speed. New theories were cooked up to explain the discrepancies: the special and general theories of relativity, quantum theory and its offspring. By the 1930s these new theories were widely accepted, though some of the fine details remained (and some still remain!) to be worked out.

Then, in the late 1950s, along came your humble correspondent, to study physics to advanced level at a good English secondary school. What did they teach us? Newtonian mechanics! I didn't take a class in relativity theory until my third year at university, age 21. I never have formally studied quantum mechanics, though I flatter myself I understand it well enough.

My schoolmasters did the right thing. Newton's mechanics is the foundation of all physics. "But it's wrong!" you may protest. Well, so it is; but it is right enough to form that essential foundation; right enough that you cannot understand the nature of its wrongness until you have mastered it. (Along with some college-level math.) Furthermore, it is consensus science. By that I mean, if you were to poll 10,000 productive working physicists and ask them what ought to be taught in our high schools, I imagine that upwards of 9,900 of them would say: "Well, you have to get Newtonian mechanics into their heads..." No doubt you'd find the odd Velikovskian or adherent of the Hohlweltlehre, but Newtonism would be the consensus. Intelligent high-school seniors should, I think, be encouraged to read popular books about relativity and quantum mechanics. Perhaps, nowadays ? I couldn't say, I am out of touch ? teachers have even figured out how to make some of that higher stuff accessible to young minds, and are teaching it. If so, that's great. The foundation, though, must be consensus science, conservatively taught.

I think intelligent teenagers should also be given some acquaintance with pseudoscience, just so that they might learn to spot it when they see it. A copy of that excellent magazine Skeptical Inquirer ought to be available in any good high school library, along with books like Gardner's. I am not sure that either pseudoscience or its refutation has any place in the science classroom, though. These things properly belong in social studies, if anywhere outside the library.

And what should we teach our kids in biology classes, concerning the development of living things on earth? We should teach them Darwinism, on exactly the same arguments. There is no doubt this is consensus science. When the Intelligent Design people flourished a list of 400 scientists who were skeptical of the theory of evolution, the National Center for Science Education launched "Project Steve," in which they asked for affirmation of the contrary view, but only from scientists named Steve. (Which they estimate to be about one percent of all U.S. scientists.) The Steve-O-Meter stands at 577 as of this July 8, implying around 57,000 scientists on the orthodox side. That's consensus science. When the I.D. support roster has 57,000 names on it, drop me a line.

And Darwinism ought to be taught conservatively, without skepticism or equivocation, which will only confuse young minds. Darwinism is the essential foundation for all of modern biology and genomics, and offers a convincing explanation for all the phenomena we can observe in the life sciences. It may be that, as we get to finer levels of detail, we shall find gaps and discrepancies in Darwinism that need new theories to explain them. This is a normal thing in science, and new theories will be worked out to plug the gaps, as happened with Newtonism a hundred years ago. If this happens, nobody ? no responsible scientist ? will be running round tearing his hair, howling "Darwinism is a theory in crisis!" any more than the publication of Einstein's great papers a hundred years ago caused physicists to make bonfires of the Principia. The new theories, once tested and validated, will be welcomed and incorporated, as Einstein's and Planck's were. And very likely our high schools will just go on teaching Darwinism, as mine taught me Newtonism fifty years after Einstein's revolution. They will be right to do so, in my opinion, just as my schoolmasters were right.

If you are afraid that your children, being confronted with science in school, will turn into atheists and materialists, you have a wide variety of options available to you in this free nation. Most obviously, you should take your kids to church regularly, encourage them to pray, say grace before meals, and respond to those knotty questions that children sometimes ask with answers from your own faith. Or you could homeschool them, or send them to a religious school, and make sure they are not exposed to the science you fear so much.

You really shouldn't be afraid of science, though. Plenty of fine scientists have been religious. The hero of my last book, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 19th century, was a very devout man, as I took pains to make clear. The same can be said of many Darwinists. I am currently researching the life of the Victorian writer Charles Kingsley, who was a keen naturalist, an early and enthusiastic supporter of Darwin, and also a passionate Christian, who preached the last of his many fine sermons from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey. (The last words of that sermon were: "Come as thou seest best, but in whatsoever way thou comest, even so come, Lord Jesus." I suppose this man would be considered impious by the Intelligent Design merchants.)

A great deal of nonsense is being talked in this zone recently. Science is science, and ought to be taught in our public schools conservatively, from the professional consensus, as settled fact. Religion is quite a different thing. It is not entirely unconnected with science. Many scientists have believed that in their inquiries, they were engaging with God's thoughts. Faraday certainly thought so; probably Newton did, too; possibly Einstein did. This has even been a strong motivation for scientific research, and it is probable that in a world with no religion, we should have much less science than we have. Those are matters psychological and motivational, though. They don't ? they can't ? inform the content of scientific theories, because those theories are naturalistic by definition. Whether miracles happen in the world is a thing you must decide for yourself, based on your own faith, study, and life experiences. To admit miracles into a scientific theory, however, turns it into pseudoscience at once; and while pseudoscience can be fun, it is not science. Nor is it religion, except in the widest and loosest possible sense of that word, a sense that includes every kind of supernatural baloney that any clever crackpot can come up with ? a sense I personally will not accept.
    
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200508300823.asp

This piece claims plans might be in the works to allow government VIPs to avoid airport security. If this indeed comes to pass I'd say a lot of loud squawking is in order.


Taking an ice pick to airline security
Paul Jacob (archive)

August 28, 2005


Ready for your flight? Got your ticket? Your government-issued photo ID? An ice pick?

Truth is stranger than fiction. The 9/11 hijackers are believed to have used box cutters to take over the airplanes and commit their evil ? a tool, a weapon, which at that time was actually approved for carrying onto airplanes. Today, the Transportation Security Administration is looking at new rules that would again allow passengers to carry on similar items: ice picks, razor blades, martial arts throwing stars, bows and arrows, and knives under five inches long . . . which would appear to include box cutters.

The same Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that seems to delight in taking away our tiny nail clippers ? to save us from doom at 30,000 feet ? now suggests it might be A-OK to bring an ice pick on board.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to see the TSA relax some of its ridiculous rules. Folks may soon be able to keep their shoes on while going through security, and the days of harassing travelers for using one-way tickets may finally be over. No complaint there. In fact, I applaud the agency for any attempt, even a feeble one, to pay attention to flyers as people, as citizens, as customers.

But as David Marks writes at Blogcritics.org, "How is it 'customer-friendly' to allow scissors, razor blades, small knives, ice picks, throwing stars and bows and arrows on flights? Is there a great need to cut things, shave, pick ice, practice martial arts or target practice on a moving flight?"

Apparently, the TSA wants passengers to be better armed than pilots. The agency fought the proposal to permit pilots to carry firearms and then consistently dragged its feet in creating a system to evaluate, process and approve pilots. TSA even mandated that pilots go through an invasive psychological exam to carry a gun.

It never made much sense that a pilot already trusted with the lives of hundreds of people on the plane and thousands more on the ground should face such laborious additional scrutiny to carry a gun. Especially considering the gun was there only as a last-ditch defense against a maniacal mass murderer threatening to take over the plane.

Maybe government isn't really supposed to make sense.

It is also par for the course that the egalitarian TSA is proposing that certain big-shot passengers ? such as members of Congress, airline pilots, Cabinet members, state governors, federal judges, high-ranking military officers and people with top-secret security clearances ? not be screened at all. It might be worth considering if everyone on this list could be trusted, but just read the list again from the beginning.

"Either you screen everybody," responded Douglas Laird, former head of security for Northwest Airlines, "or why screen anybody?"

TSA's mission is to make certain that planes aren't hijacked, flown into buildings or blown out of the sky. And give it some credit; no planes have been hijacked or blown up since September 11, 2001.

But even the TSA ? in making the argument for relaxing the list of prohibited carry-on items ? tacitly admits that their screening at airports doesn't have much impact. TSA gives the credit for preventing hijackings and other attacks to new reinforced cockpit doors, increased use of air marshals and the fact that passengers will no longer sit idly by while being hijacked. The change in the expected behavior of passengers is the biggest factor, and may by itself be enough to thwart future hijackings.

On the other hand, many doubts remain about air marshals and TSA's passenger screening at airports. The former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security reported in 2002 that air marshals were found sleeping on the job, tested positive for alcohol or drugs while on duty, and even lost their weapons. Surely this doesn't apply to most air marshals and doesn't mean they aren't a good idea ? just that they aren't foolproof. Pun intended.

And who hasn't suspected that the elaborate and expensive screening at airports is much more about show ? to impress Nervous Nellies into a false sense of security ? than about serious security work. Numerous official and unofficial tests of airport screeners have illuminated holes big enough to drive a truck-bomb through. Undercover government agents were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports during one set of tests in 2003.

In fact, TSA officials now acknowledge they are more concerned about bombs being smuggled aboard airliners than about passengers using a Swiss army knife or an ice pick to hijack a jet. They argue that looking for and confiscating cigarette lighters and nail clippers only hinders the search for more serious weapons, such as bombs.

It's hard to argue with this logic, but an ice pick? Throwing stars? Arrows?

As those of us who fly a great deal know, the TSA is a political bureaucracy that will never function like a dynamic group of 007s. It can never ensure us total safety from terrorists. Even real 007s couldn't guarantee that.

We can have more protective, more common-sense policies. All it may take is for the TSA to regard my fellow passengers with a little more solidarity, as something more than cash cows (or any kind of cattle) and certainly a whole lot more than terrorist suspects. Treat us with a little more respect, and we might even be relied upon. For, in this whole mess, it's my fellow passengers I trust most.


Paul Jacob is Senior Fellow at Americans for Limited Government, a Townhall.com member group. His daily Common Sense commentary appears on the Web, and on radio stations across America

Found an interesting article about finding terrorists and creating structures for doing so. One of the arguments made is that there currently is not a consistent or comprehensive structure for finding the bad guys. The piece can be found at:

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2005/articles/manhunting.pdf

I've recently subscribed to the free newletter Blackwater publishes. A private training and security company working in Iraq among other places, their newsletter contains a lot of nuggets. You can subscribe from their homepage at:

http://blackwaterusa.com/

As I've said before, the BATFE often seems like a police agency in search of a police state.

VA-ALERT: BATFE sinks to a new low in Richmond
Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
Thu 8/18/2005 12:21 AM
Philip Van Cleave,VCDL President


The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE), who seem to go out of their way to alienate gun owners with their heavy-handedness, behaved in a shameful manner this last weekend at the Showmasters' gun show in Richmond.

I had reports from members of police going to their houses while the member was waiting for their approval to purchase a gun at the show! The police asked the spouse and other family members questions about the purchases and filled in a survey! "Did you know your husband was going to a gun show today?" "Did you know your husband was going to buy a gun today?" and many other such questions.

If no one was home at the gun purchaser's house, the police went to the neighbors! "Did you know that your neighbor was buying a gun today? How do you feel about him doing so?"

One member, who was carrying a personal gun to sell, was approached by BATFE and taken to a car while they checked him out. The officer said in front of Showmasters' management, "Did you know you need a business license to sell a gun at this show? I have seen you at a lot of shows - are you in the business of selling guns? I think you are." That's called a fishing expedition and intimidation. In the end they let the VCDL member go because their fish hooks came up empty.

They had over 17 BATFE agents at that show. Richmond and Henrico had a large number of officers running to the homes of anyone purchasing a handgun to ask questions.

I guess Mayor Wilder is flush with cash all of a sudden. Too bad he didn't use that money to put all those cops into the rougher neighborhoods of Richmond, instead of harassing the decent citizens who buy guns at a gun show.

And, if you are sitting down, the main BATFE agent at the show told Showmasters' management that Richmond was going to be the model for this kind of behavior across the nation!!!

BUT, THERE IS GOOD NEWS.

Steve Elliott, who heads up C&E Gun Shows and is affiliated with Showmasters, along with Annette Gelles, who heads up Showmasters, went to Washington with some lawyers to get this straightened out on Monday. (BTW, Steve told me that he has spent in excess of $10,000 this year on legal fees fighting this kind of abuse.)

Steve and Annette were told by the BATFE in DC that BATFE would no longer be sending officers to people's houses who were purchasing a firearm and that what happened in Richmond should not have happened.

We will be watching carefully to see if BATFE keeps its word or not. Report any such abuse immediately to VCDL, along with the officer's name, badge number, and department.

*************************************************************************** VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The membership considers the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to be an essential human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org

A very long, very telling interview with a self-proffessed "British jihadist."


Issue 113 / August 2005

A British jihadist

Hassan Butt, a 25 year old from Manchester, helped recruit Muslims to fight in Afghanistan. Like most of the London bombers, he is a British Pakistani who journeyed from rootlessness to radical Islam

Aatish Taseer

Aatish Taseer is a former "Time" reporter. He is now a freelance journalist

It is not hard to imagine what the Leeds suburb of Beeston was like before it became known that three of London's tube bombers worked or lived there. For someone like me? a Punjabi with parents from each side of the India/Pakistan border?the streets of Beeston reveal a pre-partition mixture of Punjabi Muslims and Sikhs. Despite the commotion caused by half the world's media, men in shalwar kurta (traditional dress from the subcontinent) stand around on street corners chatting as if in a bazaar in Lahore. They oppose Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, they "hate" America, they might even think that the west has united in a fight against Muslims, but these are not the faces of extremism. Their involvement in 7/7 is a generational one: they have raised the people who are the genus of Islamic extremism in this country?the second-generation British Pakistanis.


One appears next to his father on the street corner. Unlike his father, there is nothing about his appearance that indicates he is a Punjabi Muslim. He is wearing long Arab robes and keeps a beard cut to Islamic specifications. I ask him why he is dressed the way he is. "It's my traditional dress," he says in English. "Isn't your father in traditional dress?" I ask. "Yes, but this is Islamic dress," he clarifies. His father looks embarrassed. A man standing next to me jokes of how he complained to his neighbour that his son never did any work, and the neighbour said, "You think that's bad, mine's grown a beard and become a bloody maulvi [priest]."


As a half-Indian, half-Pakistani with a strong connection to this country, I have observed the gulf between what it means to be British Pakistani and British Indian. To be Indian is to come from a safe, ancient country and, more recently, from an emerging power. In contrast, to be Pakistani is to begin with a depleted idea of nationhood. In the 55 years that Pakistan has been a country, it has been a dangerous, violent place, defined by hatred of the other?India.


For young British Muslims, if Pakistan was not the place to look for an identity, being second-generation British was still less inspiring. While their parents were pioneers, leaving Pakistan in search of economic opportunities, enduring the initial challenges of a strange land, the second generation's experience has been one of drudgery and confusion. Mohammad, who owns a convenience store on Stratford Street in Beeston and who knew all the local bombers, says, "They were born and raised here, we did the work? and these kids grew up and they haven't had a day's worry. They're bored, they don't do any work, they have no sense of honour or belonging."


Britishness is the most nominal aspect of identity to many young British Pakistanis. The thinking in Britain's political class has at last begun to move on this front, but when our tube bombers were growing up, any notion that an idea of Britishness should be imposed on minorities was seen as offensive. Britons themselves were having a hard time believing in Britishness. If you denigrate your own culture you face the risk of your newer arrivals looking for one elsewhere. So far afield in this case, that for many second-generation British Pakistanis, the desert culture of the Arabs held more appeal than either British or subcontinental culture. Three times removed from a durable sense of identity, the energised extra-national worldview of radical Islam became one available identity for second-generation Pakistanis. The few who took it did so with the convert's zeal: plus Arabe que les Arabes.


The older generation of Beeston is mystified as to where some of their children found this identity. By all accounts it was not in the mosque. I met Maulana Munir of the Stratford Street mosque, which, according to some newspapers, was attended by some of the London bombers. Munir, a small, soft-spoken man, said he had never known them. "This younger generation," he says, "are owners of their own will, they come when they like, they don't when they don't like. The mosque is not responsible for these people." Munir, like the others of the older generation, is a man cut off from the youth movements around him. He has not faced their loss of identity and meaning.


Hassan Butt, the young British Pakistani who was a spokesman for the extremist group al-Muhajiroun, and active in recruiting people to fight against the coalition forces in Afghanistan, embodies this journey from frustration and rootlessness to radical Islam. The world he describes before he was first approached, aged 17, by members of the Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), was a disordered one. When I interviewed him last year, he described HT as showing him an Islam that could bring order to his life. Accepting Islam meant the creation of a social equilibrium that had been absent before. Islam was playing the role it had in 7th-century Arabia of bringing law and structure to decaying communities.


Butt parted ways with al-Muhajiroun (itself a breakaway from HT) and its founder Omar Sheikh Bakri because they supported the Islamic idea of a "covenant of security," by which Muslims in Britain are forbidden from any type of military action in Britain. Butt believed that military action against Britain would be unwise for the practical reason that it would jeopardise the protection "Londonistan" was offering radical Muslims, but he could not tolerate the position that such action was un-Islamic.


I was reminded of Butt's cold hatred for Britain when a colleague of mine said that Beeston's younger generation were saying to her, a week after the London bombs, "Well what's the difference between al Qaeda and MI5 anyway?" and "It's sad people died, but what about the ones who died in Iraq?"


There it is again, the extra-national sentiment, in which no nation matters save the Islamic nation and its Arab culture. Butt spoke passionately about Arabia and wants to go there. "I believe the Arabic language will give me that key to have access to those things I don't have access to at the moment." Again, that yearning for Islam to fill the gaps in his own identity.


And yet, on the one occasion he came close to having a national identity, he seemed to love it. From the way he described his two years in Lahore, it sounded like the only place he ever felt a sense of belonging. "I've never had a better two years in my life. I see Pakistan as the only country having the potential to lead the Muslim world out of the disarray it is in."


Butt is an ardent supporter of "martyrdom actions." Whether he will achieve the martyrdom he desires remains to be seen. But during our interview, he did say something very interesting in the light of the London bombs. "If someone were to attack Britain, they would be a completely and utterly loose cannon. It would be someone who wasn't involved in the network." What worried me when I went to Beeston and met some of its youth, many as full of vitriol as Butt, was that maybe the London bombings had been such a "loose cannon" operation. The bombers certainly had outside support, but there seemed to be a frighteningly independent quality about the operation, a cottage-industry terrorism growing in Hamara youth centres.


Radical Islam draws recruits from many walks of life, but in Britain its agents are of a type?second-generation British Pakistanis. Somehow they have been worst hit by the populations shifts of the last 50 years and the alienation that came with them. A few have rallied under a banner which brings an intense sense of grievance. And when they are done chasing absurd dreams of caliphates, there is always martyrdom. "For me there's nothing bigger," said Butt. I met many in Beeston with his makings: small, rootless lives, seeking bigger things.


Butt briefly became a minor celebrity of British Muslim extremism when he returned from his recruitment activities in Lahore in December 2002. He was arrested, had his passport revoked, and remains under surveillance. This interview took place last year in his home town, Manchester. Butt is short but powerfully built and was wearing robes. He has an Islamic beard and a pleasant, friendly face. He collected me at the station and we went to Sanam, a restaurant in Manchester's curry mile which does not serve alcohol. Everyone there knew him and greeted him like a celebrity.


Butt: I used to be part of al-Muhajiroun, but we parted because of differences? They have this idea?derived from the Koran, a valid Islamic opinion but not one I believe is applicable to British citizens?of a ?covenant of security.? This means Muslims in Britain are forbidden from any military action in Britain. Now, I am not in favour of military action in Britain, but if somebody did do it who was British, I would not have any trouble with that either. Islamically, it would be my duty to support and praise their action. It wouldn?t necessarily be the wisest thing to do, but it wouldn't be un-Islamic, as al-Muhajiroun said.
 
This, I believe, is a compromise when it comes to representing certain key concepts of Islam. I've always had a policy that if you're going to come to the media, either speak the truth or don't speak at all. Don't come to the media if the heat is too hot for you.
 
Taseer: Where do you think the covenant of security idea comes from? I spoke to an imam who said that you cannot strike against your host country. If you want to support Iraqis, go there and support them.
 
Butt: Most imams, as you know, have come here not as British citizens. There is a difference between a citizen who is born in a country and someone who is here on a visa or a permit. Islamically, I agree that someone who runs from the middle east?where people like me are persecuted?and says, ?Britain, I want you to protect me? has entered a covenant of security. They say, ?Look, protect my life and as a result I won't do any harm to you.? That I agree with 100 per cent, but most of our people, especially the youth, are British citizens. They owe nothing to the government. They did not ask to be born here; neither did they ask to be protected by Britain.
 
Taseer: So they've entered no covenant?
 
Butt: They have no covenant. As far as I'm concerned, the Islamic hukum (order) that I follow, says that a person has no covenant whatsoever with the country in which they were born.
 
Taseer: Do they have an allegiance to the country?
 
Butt: No, none whatsoever. Even the person who has a covenant has no allegiance, he just agrees not to threaten the life, honour, wealth, property, mind, and so on, of the citizens around him.
 
Taseer: Your argument is based on these people being ?British,? so don't they necessarily have some loyalty to Britain?
 
Butt: No, that's what I'm saying. They have no loyalty whatsoever; they have no allegiance to the government.
 
Taseer: Perhaps not the government, but to the country?
 
Butt: To the country, no.
 
Taseer: Do you feel some?
 
Butt: I feel absolutely nothing for this country. I have no problem with the British people? but if someone attacks them, I have no problem with that either.
 
Taseer: Who do you have allegiance to?
 
Butt: My allegiance is to Allah, his Shari?a, his way of life. Whatever he dictates as good is good, whatever as bad is bad.
 
Taseer: Has it always been this way for you?
 
Butt: Always? No. I grew up in a very open-minded family; there are only four of us. My parents never made us pray, never sent us to the mosque, which was very different from your average Pakistani family who would make sure that the child learned something. I learned absolutely nothing.
 
Taseer: So how did you discover Islam, or rediscover it?
 
Butt: Well, being Kashmiri, I'm hot-headed by nature, and so are my brothers. Even before I was a practising Muslim, I was very hot-headed. That hot-headedness was leading us down a path of destruction. A lot of the people I grew up among were on drugs, were involved in crime, prostitution, at very young ages. I remember when I came across the first Muslim who talked to me about Islam in a language I understood. He pointed out that I had a lot of anger and frustration that I should direct in a more productive manner. It was from there that I got discussing Islam seriously?even though we were hotheads, me and my brothers always had brains, we weren't thugs. We were still excelling in our studies and getting top grades in our exams.
 
Taseer: How old were you when you changed?
 
Butt: I was 17 when I really started practising.
 
Taseer: Was it through a mosque?
 
Butt: No. It was through individuals whom I met, who started speaking a language that I understood, who went beyond just the prayer. I understand the huge importance of that.
 
Taseer: How did they approach you?
 
Butt: My elder brother was in college, I was still at secondary school. The college being a bit more open to Islamic activities than high school, we met some members of Hizb ut-Tahrir inside a masjid (mosque) and got talking. At that time the masjid was full anyway, since it was Ramadan. They showed me that beyond the recitation of the Koran, the praying, the fasting, the hajj?that Islam is a complete system, a complete way of life, and how that applied to us and our place in society.
 
Taseer: What is the philosophy of Hizb ut-Tahrir?
 
Butt: The idea is that Muslims in Britain need to keep to their Islamic identity and work for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate, or khalifah as they would say, based upon the first four caliphates of Islam.
 
Taseer: Where?
 
Butt: In the Muslim countries. That is one of the differences I had with them.
 
Taseer: You would like to see the caliphate here too?
 
Butt: Absolutely. How could we restrict something that initially started in Medina but then spread through the entire Muslim world?
 
Taseer: Would everyone have to be a Muslim, or would it work within our existing society?
 
Butt: No, it?s a structure of law and order?
 
Taseer: A central authority?
 
Butt: A central Islamic authority. Whether the people are Muslim or not is irrelevant. But even orientalist authors like Gilles Keppel agree that Islam was so powerful that it was the only way of life that both the conquered and the conqueror embraced. When the Mongols attacked Islam, they became Muslims; the same happened with the Turks. Even the people Islam conquered, they themselves embraced the way of life. People say it was forced by the sword, but if so, when the sword was removed, why did these people not revert back? Simply because it was never actually forced upon them. The inherent beauty of Islam made people want to embrace it.
 
Taseer: There are places it didn't happen, like India.
 
Butt: For me, the subcontinent was a tragedy; it never had the Islam that was introduced in Spain, for example, or north Africa. Very early on, the Mughals took power and India distanced itself from central Islam. The Arab Muslims never concentrated on these people enough, which is why the majority of Muslims there never embraced it.
 
Taseer: You said that you were once hot-headed; are you calmer today?
 
Butt: I find myself just as emotional as I was then, but more able to express that emotion in an Islamic manner. I would hate to be an emotionless person. You hear this a lot in the Muslim world today, from certain intellectuals: ?Don't be emotional about it, think rationally, think logically.? I guess it's an imperial complex from being under British rule for so long. British people are seen as being very cool-headed, calm and collected, but if your sister has been raped, your mother tortured and your father is being brutalised, how could you stay without emotion? Having no emotion is like being a brick. Now I can channel my emotion in an Islamic way rather than an un-Islamic way.
 
Taseer: Tell me a bit about your daily life. Do you read books and see movies?
 
Butt: No, no, no. (He laughs)
 
Taseer: How do you pass the day?
 
Butt: Daily routine would be getting up to pray the fajr without failure, staying awake for as long as I can, for at least an hour, an hour and a half, reciting the Koran, purely in Arabic?
 
Taseer: Is your Arabic good?
 
Butt: My Arabic, unfortunately, is not the best and I guess I have my parents to blame for that. But I do plan, once they give me back my passport, to go to an Arab country. I think it's the key to everything.
 
Taseer: Do you work?
 
Butt: I don't want to go into specifics. I do have business partners, but they don't like me coming out publicly and saying that they're affiliated with me. I do various different trading things. I don't have a normal nine-to-five type of job. Whenever I have applied for a job in the past, they have found out who I am and the views I hold, and as a result they don?t want me. But wherever I go, I will always be involved in Islamic work.
 
Taseer: At work?
 
Butt: Even at work. I?m always trying to help my colleagues, as Muslims, to have a more Islamic way of life.
 
Taseer: How would you describe yourself as a Muslim, given that there are so many labels bring thrown about??moderate,? ?extremist? and so on?
 
Butt: I would agree to being called a radical and one day I may even be called a terrorist, if Allah permits me. That is something it would be an honour to be called.
 
Taseer: Surely, even in an Islamic context, that can't be a positive label?
 
Butt: There is a speech by the Prophet in which he says: Allah gave me five things. One of them was the power to strike fear, to strike terror into the heart of the enemy from a mile's distance, and this was a reference to a battle he had commenced. The way the warriors had prepared themselves was so terrifying that the enemy didn?t even turn up to the battle. Besides that, in the Koran the word irhab is the root word for terror in Islam, and irhabiyun is the word for terrorist. Allah mentions the word in the Koran many times?the one who strikes terror into their hearts is an irhabiyun. If I could have that title Islamically then I would be more than happy to take it and be proud of it. But unfortunately, I haven't reached that level yet.
 
Taseer: Why not?
 
Butt: Because I am stuck in this country. It would be unwise to carry out military operations here.
 
Taseer: Why?
 
Butt: It would harm a lot of people. Britain is a very liberal country in comparison to America where Muslims don't have many rights. This is the type of country where you do have a lot more rights. Now with Afghanistan gone, the Muslims don't really have a place where they can come back to and regroup, have time to think and relax, without the authorities breathing down your neck.
 
Taseer: Was it difficult growing up here as a Muslim? Did you sense an anti-Islamic feeling?
 
Butt: The British establishment has always hated Islam. Look at the crusades. I watched that programme on the BBC, The Secret Policeman (an undercover report on trainee policemen) and one of the police officers had the honesty to admit what he felt: he said he would kill a Muslim if he could get away with it. What he said briefly is that he represents the majority, the only difference being that he has the courage to articulate it. And I do believe in my heart of hearts that the majority of British people?the majority being outside of London?would do that if they had the opportunity. Historically speaking, there has always been an enmity. I experienced it as I was growing up, going into majority white schools and having a problem trying to be a Muslim.
 
Taseer: Would you try to leave?
 
Butt: If they give me my passport, I will fly straight out of here. I won?t be here a day longer than I have to.
 
Taseer: And never come back?
 
Butt: And never come back unless absolutely necessary.
 
Taseer: Until they give you your passport back, you can?t leave?
 
Butt: There's no point in my leaving. I could leave if I wanted to, but it would be illegal and it wouldn't be very hard for them to start taking criminal proceedings against me.
 
Taseer: In the past you have demonstrated the failures of British security. Has it improved?
 
Butt: It's funny you asked me that. I have been reading a book?Jihad by Gilles Keppel?not for the sake of learning anything, but to see whether these people have understood us. In the past, and I'm talking 100, 200 years ago, the reason the British were successful in destroying Islamic government or the Ottoman caliph is that they actually lived among them and they made an effort to understand what they wanted to destroy. Now they're trying to understand something that is a theory. It's in my mind, it's in peoples' minds, but it's not a practical manifestation of the system that we aspire towards, so it's very hard for them to contain it. As a result of that, the security services have lost their ability to analyse how Muslims think?I mean real Muslims, the ones who are not ashamed to talk about their opinions and to express them in public. That is why they will lose this war on terror, because guys like Keppel don?t understand us.
 
Taseer: Do many Muslims in Britain feel like you do?
 
Butt: I would say the majority of Muslims in this country care about neither moderate nor radical Islam; they care about living their day-to-day life. They're happy with that. But of those people who are practising, the majority of them hold my views. The difference is that some people come out publicly and others keep quiet.
 
Taseer: What would you say the size of this latter group is?
 
Butt: Official figures say there are 3m Muslims here. [There are in fact 1.6m.] Out of that, I would say there are 750,000 who have an interest in Islam and about 80 per cent of those were over the moon about 9/11.
 
Taseer: Why?
 
Butt: The motivation is the pleasure of Allah, first and foremost. Allah says in the Koran ?We have sent you,??the Muslims??the best nation in the world, to mankind.? But there are conditions attached to that because you must enjoy goodness and forbid evil. As long as Muslims do this, they will see themselves as the best nation. And the reason why the majority of Muslims feel this inspiration is because we understand that Islam is by its nature beautiful; it is not a backward, medieval-type way of life as a lot of westerners believe. That's why, historically, even after Islam had left these areas as a political force, people still held on to its way of life. Even in the crusades you had Muslims and Jews fighting alongside one another in order avoid Roman rule because they said Islam was just towards them; Islam gave them rights. In the 15th century, during the Spanish inquisition, where did the Jews run to? To the Ottoman caliphate, Islam was an inspiration. All human rights are based on Islam, to ensure peace and security in the world.
 
Taseer: So given the situation in the world today, what is the duty of the Muslim?
 
Butt: Every Muslim must work for the Shari?a to be implemented as a political way of life. They can do that physically, by involving themselves in revolutionary coups, or through political means. As long as they don't attack or compromise other Muslims who are doing something different from them, I have no problem with any of these ways of establishing the Shari?a.
 
Taseer: Is it going to be possible for Muslims to live alongside non-Muslims?
 
Butt: We did it in the past, why can't we do it now?
 
Taseer: Would it have to be a Muslim polity?
 
Butt: Yes.
 
Taseer: Or could it be like England?
 
Butt: No, it couldn't be like England. The so-called liberal countries in the world, France for example, boast about liberty and their so-called revolution, but they are banning headscarves. Where have the rights of the Muslims gone there? Where are the rights of Muslims in Britain to be able to support their brothers who are being attacked in Kashmir? So many of the organisations proscribed by the British government are Kashmiri freedom fighters, or terrorists as you would call them.
 
Taseer: Why is it that an attack on Muslims in another part of the world affects British Muslims?
 
Butt: Because Allah is the way of love. Racism has infiltrated Christianity and Judaism. It is inbred in the people. Christians never see themselves as one brotherhood, but rather many dominions, whereas Muslims, no matter what colour they are, no matter what race they are, no matter what nationality they are, see themselves as one brotherhood. Ultimately this is what Islam teaches; that black, white, brown, red, green?if there were aliens in Mars?these people are brothers. Poor or rich, it has no effect on how we should treat one another. It doesn't mean that we should divide. And that is why when Muslims are being attacked, the majority of Muslims kick up a fuss, because these are their brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, there are Muslims today whose only reason to pick up a cause is for political support or their personal ambitions. Ultimately, if your brothers and sisters were being killed in any part of the world, you would make your utmost effort to try to help them.
 
Taseer: Where do you see Muslims under attack?
 
Butt: Everywhere. It's not limited to just one place. Wherever Muslims are they are under attack and until they start viewing themselves like that, they will always remain an inferior nation.
 
Taseer: And why are they under attack?
 
Butt: If they're not being attacked physically, they are being attacked mentally. They are being told that their way of life is backward, they?re being told that for women to cover themselves is against human rights, they're being told that to cut the hand of the thief, which Allah ordains in the Koran, is outdated. They're being told that their way of life is inferior and bad and should not be followed. And they're often stripped of their identity, as they were in Bosnia: Muslim by name only, no culture whatsoever. That is still a war as a far as I'm concerned.
 
Taseer: Why is there a "Muslim problem? today? Ten or 15 years ago there wasn't the sort of movement you see today. What changed?
 
Butt: I don't agree with you. Ten to 15 years ago the Muslims had just experienced their first victory of the 20th century, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The belief that this was due to American support is ridiculous. Muslims, especially from the middle east, financed the jihad just as much, if not more. This is well documented. With that victory under their belt, the Muslims began to realise that they could control their own political destiny, whether by revolution or other violent means. To be honest with you, I don't think the Americans, British or French are the best lecturers on how to change a society, simply because they have themselves experienced revolution to attain the way of life they believe in. So why, when we do it, are we so different from them? Muslims woke up. You then had Iraq being attacked, you had Chechnya, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, Algeria, you had all these Muslim areas being attacked and you had Muslims waking up and saying, ?Hang on, this isn't a coincidence.?
 
Taseer: Why do you think that is?
 
Butt: Because after the fall of communism, America began to realise that Islam was a threat.
 
Taseer: The larger fall of communism wasn't the result of Islam even if you think that that may be the case in Afghanistan...
 
Butt: That's what I'm saying; it was a catalyst for collapse in Afghanistan.
 
Taseer: Why?
 
Butt: Because Islam is a way of life, a way of life superior to communism and capitalism. Christianity is a mere religion and can?t cater for people?s way of life, but Islam can. With the fall of the Soviet Union, people started turning to Islam as a way of life, whereas America wanted to spread capitalism across the world. That's why Islam became the enemy.
 
Taseer: Yes, but why are Muslims the only enemy? Are they the only ones fighting American colonialism?
 
Butt: No, you have your South American states that are involved in the struggle. But with the exception of them and a few African nations, the majority of the people fighting against American colonialism are not Muslim nations, but Muslim people. Muslim governments are more than happy to embrace the other way of life in order to stay powerful.
 
Taseer: Do you consider yourself a religious teacher of sorts? Do you speak to people in the community?
 
Butt: I speak to a lot of people in the community. I have a gym in my house where I invite people to come back and exercise and we have regular study circles at my house.
 
Taseer: What sort of people are these?
 
Butt: A lot of them are youth because I believe that when Islam is being practised by youth, Islam will be alive. If it's practised by the older generation, it will always remain old, slow.
 
Taseer: Are they receptive to your views or do they resist and say, ?No, we want to go out with girls and drink? and so on?
 
Butt: A lot of people will say that to me, but when it comes to their absolute happiness, a lot of people realise that Islam is their way of life.
 
Taseer: What do you say to them?
 
Butt: One of the first questions I ask them is: why do you celebrate Eid? If you like their way of life, celebrate Christmas. That provokes thought in their head that the reason they celebrate Eid is because they are different. It's not just Eid or Christmas, it's their whole way of life being different. How they speak to their people, how they speak to their fellow brothers and sisters, how they speak to their teachers, how they progress in their education: they have different ways. Ultimately, if someone believes in Allah and his messenger, he will always have at the back of his mind the notion that he?ll go back to Allah when he dies. And I'll ask people, ?Don't lie for the sake of me, you don't have to say something to please me, but do you believe in Allah? Ask yourself that question, do you really, really believe in Allah? Do you really believe that there is hellfire, do you really believe that there is heaven and hell, or not?? And if someone believes that, there is no reason why they won't realise that, ?Yes, our life does belong to us.? And from there, we'll go further. To those brothers who say, ?I pray all the time,? I reply, ?That's not enough: give your life for Allah, that's what he wants, he wants you to live and die for him, that is the ultimate sacrifice, he gave you that life, give it back to him.?
 
Taseer: Given that the Koran is incontestable to the letter, and that it is unique because there is no another religion in which there is a text so pure, handed down from God to man, can there be a moderate Muslim?
 
Butt: No. You've hit the nail on the head. If someone believes that it's the incontestable word of Allah, how can he take a moderate view? We must fight if it is the will of Allah. I don?t want to say that Muslims don?t believe in Allah, but what I will say is that their faith in Allah is weak. They fear man the same way that the Jews feared the pharaoh, who they feared more than Allah and that's why they were afraid to do anything against him, until Moses came and liberated them. The lack of leadership in the Muslim community is simply because they are too afraid to stand up against this so-called undefeatable giant of the United States.
 
Taseer: Coming back to the youth, are they angry?
 
Butt: Many are from quite wealthy families, as I am.
 
Taseer: So you don't see this rise of extremism among British Muslims as rooted in economic disadvantage?
 
Butt: I think that's a myth, pushed forward by so-called moderate Muslims. If you look at the 19 hijackers on 9/11, which one of them didn't have a degree? Muhammad Atta was an engineer [he was actually an architect and town planner] at the highest level. His Hamburg lecturer said, ?I didn't have a student like him.? These people are not deprived or uneducated; they are the peak of society. They've seen everything there is to see and they are rejecting it outright because there is nothing for them. Most of the people I sit with are in fact university students, they come from wealthy families. Islam caters for everybody: the economically deprived and the most educated person. It doesn't make any difference: the message will still be the same. But this myth?that the only reason these people go for Islam is because they have nothing else to do?is a lie and a fabrication. People who say that should be very careful. Even Osama himself, Sheikh Osama, came from wealth that I could never dream of and he gave it all up because it had no value to him. Who can say he came from an economically deprived condition? It's rubbish.

Taseer: Clearly you have a sense of an enemy. What is the face of this enemy? Is it America?
 
Butt: At the moment, America.
 
Taseer: Who else is part of it?
 
Butt: You have an apparent enemy and a hidden enemy.
 
Taseer: The apparent enemy?
 
Butt: The American enemy. As far as I'm concerned, you have America spearheading the attack, followed by Britain, France, the EU, the UN, the World Bank, the IMF?
 
Taseer: India?
 
Butt: India.
 
Taseer: Thailand?
 
Butt: Thailand, especially after what happened recently. [Attacks on Muslim rebels in the south of the country]
 
Taseer: What does it take to join the enemy?
 
Butt: To support them. The Japanese only have 500 troops in Iraq; as a result they've declared war on Islam. China from day one has been testing its nuclear missiles in the Xinjiang province; it's a Muslim province, so China is another enemy of Islam. As far as we're concerned, until an Islamic government makes treaties with these people, the world, for me, is an enemy. But there will be people who we prioritise, so I won't start attacking the South American states. I have bigger and more important enemies to deal with, those who are having direct influence in the Muslim world, like America.
 
Taseer: In your capacity as a teacher and leader, what is your wish for the British Muslim?
 
Butt: I would say every Muslim needs to be proud of Islam, without feeling inferior, and to read a book by Mohammad Assad, a convert from Germany in the 1930s. As far as I'm concerned, the British are still ruling the subcontinent, and the way they're doing that is by the inferiority complex. They instil this idea that people have to follow the western design in order for them to progress. It was such a clever ploy by the British. 100 or 200 years ago, their security services were much more intelligent than they are today. My advice to Muslims is start to get out of this inferiority complex, start to realise that Islam is beautiful, don't be ashamed of it. If someone says jihad, don't be ashamed; if someone says hijab, don't be ashamed. What Allah says is good is good, what he says is bad is bad, don't be ashamed of saying what is good and bad. This is my advice, be proud of being a Muslim, not only be proud, be loud about that. If you watch a really good movie, you'll go out and tell the whole world: ?That movie was just so brilliant, you've got to watch that movie, you've got to see it.? It?s the same way with Islam. If you believe it is the truth, if you believe it is the most beautiful way of life, if you believe it is the divine word of Allah, don't keep it to yourself, tell the whole world about it and don't be ashamed of it. British Muslims, especially, have this platform, because something said in London or Britain can reach the whole world. The Muslims in the middle east don't have that benefit or the liberty we have. We must take advantage of it.
 
Taseer: Is military action part of the plan?
 
Butt: If someone wants to go into military action, I would encourage them, because Allah says in Surah Taubah, ?From the believers I ask for their wealth and their life and the best among you are the ones who fight and kill and be killed for me.? This is the promise that Allah makes. These people are the ones that gain the supreme success. For me there is nothing bigger if somebody goes out there and kills for the sake of Allah or is killed for the sake of Allah.
 
Taseer: Why suicide bombing?
 
Butt: There is a difference between suicide and martyrdom. Suicide is about unhappiness, depression. That's not what these people are. These people have an urge to be with Allah, to be with the Prophet, live among him, to be close to him. They are happy before committing these actions. They are probably at the highest level any human being can be before doing this. They are the most peaceful and content. There is a complete and utter difference between martyrdom operations and suicide operations: with the former, you want to do it not because you are fed up, but because you are happy to enter the next step of life, which is the afterlife. With the latter, you are completely and utterly fed up with life.
 
Taseer: You've claimed in the past to recruit British people for martyrdom operations. Who are they?
 
Butt: The majority of people who, after 9/11, went to Afghanistan like myself were educated. They understood the reality of this war, and many came from secure family backgrounds. They had wives, children; they had no reason to leave. But they had a call within themselves that was urging them to go forward.
 
Taseer: What?s the position of the radical Islamic movement in Britain today? Is it growing or declining?
 
Butt: I do believe that support is growing. In the public eye it seems as though only a tiny number of Muslims are making this noise, but the fact is that only a tiny number have the courage to speak out. The rest won't, simply because they're worried about being persecuted by the government.
 
Taseer: What about the imams? Are they helping?
 
Butt: There are many brilliant imams in this country, and then a lot who are not so brilliant. My main grievance with the imams is that they are not public enough. Maybe they know better than me because they're older and more experienced. But I?ll give you an example: the letter that was sent out publicly by the Muslim Council of Britain to the mosques saying that we should be spying on one another. I spoke to ten different imams?from London, Birmingham and London?in ten different masjids; all ten disagreed with the letter, but they never publicly said so. The letter said that you should spy on Muslims and report them if they were involved in any Islamic activities. Even when the IRA was being attacked in Britain, many priests had their anonymity protected by law because they were religious people. They were under no obligation to inform the police about any potential terrorist attacks by the IRA. So why the hell would we as Muslims go around spying on one another?
 
If the MCB letter had been a private thing then fine, but this was public and these people need to be corrected publicly. In Islam, for example, if somebody is a homosexual under an Islamic government, but practices it within his own home, Islamically he won't be punishable because he's not coming out with it publicly. So in that sense homosexuality is fine for him. The moment he comes out publicly with it, it becomes an issue for the public. My grievance with these imams is that they aren't saying these things publicly?why does it take someone like me, who is 24 years old, who has no Islamic credentials except with the youth I speak to who look up to me? Why are you imams, you people who have gone through the Islamic disciplines, not coming out and saying that this is haram? This is completely and utterly unacceptable in Islam.
 
Taseer: What about your future?
 
Butt: I believe I have a bigger and bigger role to play. Yesterday I was talking to five or six senior brothers about our different roles. I was saying that if I had a passport, I wouldn't be in this country, and I kept saying to these guys, you've all got passports, you don't have any problem, why are you not leaving the country? But then one of the brothers made a very beautiful point. He said, ?Every decade or century Allah makes somebody different, so initially you had political thinkers like Hassan al-Banna, Maududi, Sayeed Qutb. But now we have reached the more militant side of Islam, so you have Osama, Zawahiri, and Emir Khatab and Baseyev in Chechnya. Throughout time, each will have their own role to play.? And I do believe that I've got a bigger role to play and when that time comes, I will make my preparations to play that role.
 
Taseer: It's martyrdom, isn't it?
 
Butt: Absolutely. It's something that makes me really depressed being stuck in this country because I know I'm so far away from it. I know that if I was to pass away in my sleep, then I would not have the mercy of Allah upon me because I have been such a bad person. And I don't see myself in any way as getting into heaven that easily, except through martyrdom.
 
Taseer: Where would you go if you got your passport back?
 
Butt: Probably Yemen and Syria initially, because at the moment I?m wanted in Pakistan for supposed involvement in an assassination plot on Musharraf,
 
Taseer: After Yemen and Syria? The enemy that you would finally confront would be the US, right?
 
Butt: Yes. Maybe America will be destroyed in my time, maybe I'll have something completely different to do. But I need to learn Arabic. As an English/Urdu-speaking person, I can see the beauty of Islam from the outside, but I really can't have access without Arabic. It's like having a beautiful house and only being able to see through the windows how beautiful it is inside. That is how I view Arabic. I believe the Arabic language will give me that key to access those things I don't have access to at the moment. Once I learn Arabic, inshallah, I will get myself militarily trained. It's like the Jews in Israel: conscription is incumbent upon every male and female.
 
Taseer: Why do you see it as something that ends in death? There are a lot of soldiers who don?t see their fight as necessarily ending in death.
 
Butt: Because death for us signifies the next stage of life. It signifies the beginning of eternal life. That's something we cannot understand, comprehend or really appreciate. For me, it's like when you say to a child, ?Don't open the cupboard? and curiosity gets the better of him and he wants to know what's there. Only this time it's not curiosity; I'm sure that the next stage of life is going to far exceed the pleasure of this life.
 
Taseer: You're looking forward to death?
 
Butt: Absolutely. As long as it's done properly. I'm terrified of dying normally, growing old, grey.
 
Taseer: You don't see that as a selfish impulse, to care for nothing but your own salvation?
 
Butt: Ultimately, that's everybody's. The mother loves the child more than anybody. But even she, on the day of reckoning, will not look at the child; Allah says she will think of herself, solely of herself. Ultimately, that is what it's about: I'm going into my grave, you're going into your grave, everyone is ultimately going into their grave. In this duniya (world), we have as much as we can want, but ultimately it is for the benefit of your soul. It is the only point in Islam where an individual is actually allowed to be selfish.
 
Taseer: You've asked for martyrdom in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya: what do these causes have in common?
 
Butt: They're all just causes in which Muslims are being attacked by a foreign occupier.
 
Taseer: But why isn't an un-Islamic government just as much a problem, Pakistan for instance?
 
Butt: Absolutely. I pray that Allah accepts the man who made the second attempt on Musharraf?s life a few months ago. He did it as a martyr. The common thing for everyone around the world is jihad but the places you talked about?Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan?are occupied. Then you've got unoccupied ones: Riyadh, Bali?
 
Taseer: What kind of psychological strength or make-up do you need to be a martyr?
 
Butt: It takes a hell of a lot. You have to be at peace with yourself and have that comprehension. It is such a difficult thing to actually do. It's a level I'm not at, at the moment, without a shadow of doubt. Omar Sheikh [The LSE-educated killer of Daniel Pearl] is the only British Muslim I've met who is at that level? I think Mohammad Hanif and Omar Sharif [the two British Muslims who travelled to Israel as suicide bombers in 2003] were at that level too. Did you watch the video Hamas released of them? They looked so happy, and here I am, sitting here depressed, aggravated, frustrated and I look at them looking so happy and so at peace with what they're going to do, that I can only begin to imagine what kind of piety they are at to be able to say, ?Allah here I am. This is what you've given me and this is what I'm giving back in return.? That's what the spiritual side of the training is there for, and many of the camps?which have now been dismantled?concentrated on that spiritual aspect, on making sure you know why you're doing this. Like I said, it can't be curiosity: you have to know that you will get to heaven.
 
Taseer: Do you think killing Daniel Pearl was part of Omar Sheikh?s fight for Islam?
 
Butt: Whether he killed Daniel Pearl or not, I don't know to be honest with you.
 
Taseer: If he did?
 
Butt: If he did, I'm sure Islamically he knew what he was doing.
 
Taseer: Would you approve of it if he did?
 
Butt: Absolutely?journalists have always been used as spies. Even Lawrence of Arabia, who was a spy, was initially a journalist. I believe Pearl was a spy: he deserved everything he got.
 
Taseer: What about Kashmir, have you been involved in the fight there?
 
Butt: I have lectured there twice to English students in the Pakistani-controlled area. I lectured in Islamabad in one of the hotels, with someone from Kashmir, I can't remember the brother's name now. He then invited me to give two separate lectures in English, to English students about how I think they should be focusing their lives. It was very productive. Kashmir is a place that has been forgotten by the world media. It's a shame. Personally I'm not the biggest supporter of the Kashmiri jihad, because I believe a lot of it is political gaming rather than pure jihad. I see a lot of innocent lives being wasted for political motives.
 
Taseer: For the motives of the Pakistani government?
 
Butt: Yes, forcing the Indian government to keep 750,000 troops in such a small area places it under massive economic pressure.
 
Taseer: Is Lashkar doing good work?
 
Butt: I'm not a supporter of Lashkar-e-Toiba, I see them as very government-backed. I think this is a general problem in the Pakistani organisations. The minute they start attacking the government, they fear losing everything they have built up and that is a weakness in every group I see. For me, the key concept of being a separatist is that if I ask you to sacrifice your life, your wealth, your health, then you do. Ultimately, the aim is to achieve what I would say is the goal for Islam, for example to liberate Kashmir. I think Kashmir has always been a proxy war for Pakistan, and they've never really wanted to liberate it. I even remember speaking to General Zahir Abbassi and Hamid Gul: both of them said, ?Really, if we want to liberate Kashmir, we could do so very easily.? Lashkar has 200,000 followers, we only allow in 8,000 mujahedin at a time in that area. Why? Because if we sent everyone in there it would become unoccupied, and India wouldn?t have the economic burden of having to station 750,000 troops there. It's really disappointing.
 
Taseer: Why have the predicted terrorist attacks on the US and Britain following the Iraq war not happened?
 
Butt: If someone was to attack Britain, they would be a completely and utterly loose cannon. It would be someone who wasn't involved in the network? I mean the jihad network. A bomb in London would be strategically damaging to Muslims here. Immigration is lax in Britain?you know as well as I do that London has more radical Muslims than anywhere in the Muslim world. A bomb would jeopardise everyone?s position. There has to be a place we can come.
 
Taseer: So there is general agreement among the different groups not to attack Britain for strategic reasons?
 
Butt: Definitely, there is a central sense that we will not damage something for a bigger picture, but we will concentrate on our own areas.
 
Taseer: Why not more attacks in America?
 
Butt: America is much more difficult to get into than Britain?it's so far from the rest of the world.
 
Taseer: Do you see future attacks there?
 
Butt: Definitely, I can't see it stopping. As they say, cut the devil's head off. I believe that the head is America, and one of the arms is Britain. Cutting the arm off won't have an effect; cutting the head off will, so that's why I say attacks look more likely in America.
 
Taseer: What does it take to get past the various screenings that you have in your own group?
 
Butt: It's very hard, especially in Britain, where all of a sudden you've got the MI5 openly saying they are recruiting?
 
Taseer: Trying to infiltrate the groups?
 
Butt: Yeah, it's very difficult. For all you know I could be working for them. Things are working a hell of a lot slower than they used to. I'm of the philosophy more of Ramzi Yousef: take precautions, but keep them to a minimum because otherwise you're not going to get anywhere. I'm of the opinion that if somebody's a spy, he?s a spy, and he can only do what Allah has planned for them. So I'm not really going to be concerned for myself. I will carry out the very minimum checks.
 
Taseer: What kind of checks?
 
Butt: If it's somebody I brought in myself, I would get to know them and culture them. I would hope that, even if he were a spy, by the end of his time with me he would be converted anyway. He'd say, ?I can't do this.? Assuming he is not a spy, I'd make sure I know where he's come from, who he knows. If he knew nobody, he would start right at the bottom and we would have to go through all of the procedures. But if he says I'm affiliated with X, Y and Z, I could take up references with those people, I'd make sure he'd done the things he'd claimed to have done. You always have references in the radical Muslim world, that?s how it works. You can go to Pakistan and reference me from such and such a place and they'd say yeah, we know him. Then I'd go back to the person and ask if he'd gone under a different name than the one he's giving me, and if there's a slip halfway down the line, I'd say I'm sorry we can't help you, inshallah there's somebody else who can.
 
Taseer: So there are very few who come in clean with no record?
 
Butt: No, very few. On Saturday evenings on this very road, we used to have Islamic stalls and we would actually recruit people from the stalls, take their contact details, and start building up a relationship with them, meeting them, and giving them the necessary Islamic culture for them to have the Islamic identity. But I would not push anyone to do anything unless they came to me. I would never tell anyone, ?I think you should do military training.? I will never say that to anybody because it's something that has to come from the person's heart.
 
Taseer: Are there a disproportionate number of Pakistanis who want to take part in this sort of thing?
 
Butt: In Britain, the majority I know are of Pakistani descent and really are fed up with the British way of life, British standards; they are even fed up with un-Islamic Pakistani culture and traditions.
 
Taseer: Like what?
 
Butt: This issue of obeying your elders even if they're wrong, remaining silent at their mistakes. Forcing women to cook and clean and do nothing else. They're fed up with these stigmas.
 
Taseer: So would women have a stronger role in an Islamic society?
 
Butt: Oh yeah, I believe that women are the forefront of this war. If our women were correct in their minds, my job would not be necessary. If our sisters were teaching the children from a very young age to love jihad, to love Allah, to live for Allah, to die for Allah? I think they have the biggest the role to play.
 
Taseer: And it's not the economic conditions of the Pakistanis that make them well suited.
 
Butt: Not any more. The majority of the Pakistanis here are well established, they own their own homes, they're not on mortgages any more, many have gone to university, they don't have any problems, The Muslims who have the problems are the Somalis and the Bangladeshis, these are the economically deprived ones. But the Pakistanis have really got to grips with why they came here. Initially it was for economic reasons. I guess that's why the youth is a lot more responsive. The elders came here for economic benefit, so they were a lot less willing to come out publicly with their opinions, whereas the youth now are more disillusioned with what's going on around them. They've had everything they needed and they're rejecting it.
 
Taseer: You've had your passport revoked, right? What has the government told you?
 
Butt: Yeah, the official answer is that I am under investigation for links to terrorist activities and organisations and until these are cleared my passport is being held so that I don?t leave the country. They told my solicitor that the moment I leave this country I will be considered a threat to national security; as a result they bind me to Britain. This is now becoming a breach of my human rights. I am supposed to be able to travel freely to any country I want.
 
Taseer: Are you under constant surveillance?
 
Butt: As far as I understand, yes.
 
Taseer: Do you think they're watching our interview now?
 
Butt: I wouldn't be surprised if they knew about it, but whether they were watching it, I have no idea. I know my phones are most likely tapped. That's why I was quite surprised when you rang me because that number is very private, and only very few individuals have it. The other numbers keep changing, but that one I keep.
 
Taseer: When you were arrested, why couldn't they build a case?
 
Butt: They had nothing. The whole basis for my arrest was probably the information that you gathered off the internet. That's what made me realise at that point that I'd never been under observation until that day.
 
Taseer: Do you feel any guilt about using a country's freedoms to strike against it? If you were in any of the Muslim countries, you would be in jail.
 
Butt: I guess it's the British blood inside me. The British have been known for centuries to abuse everyone's resources. When they took over my father's homeland, the subcontinent, they reaped the resources, they raped the lands, even now the Queen's crown is made from jewels that don't belong to Britain. I'll hold my Islamic beliefs. I'm just continuing a trait of the British people.
 
Taseer: A tradition of deceit?
 
Butt: Yes
 
Taseer: You do see it as deceit?
 
Butt: Yeah, war is deceit.
 
Taseer: This is a war isn't it?
 
Butt: I don't see it any other way.
 
Taseer: Then how do you feel about a group like al-Muhajiroun which seems to say it's a war, but refuses to recruit?
 
Butt: It's their get-out-of-jail card. And this was one of my biggest concerns. I can understand they see war as deceit and they say it's not the aim behind the organisation and perhaps they do it behind closed doors, but I say you shouldn't be such big articulators of the war if you aren't willing to carry it out. This was our big difference. I'm not saying what they're doing is un-Islamic, but it's something I was feeling uneasy about as a Muslim. I could do it no longer, I was feeling hypocritical.
 
Taseer: If it's a war, you need soldiers, right?
 
Butt: Yeah. I'm not a soldier. My role is someone who tries to use the western media to get our message across. I remember speaking to one maulana (master) who I look up to a lot. At that point I was saying, ?I really want to go and fight.? And he said, ?Look, you have access to many things we don't. Go and utilise it, the war has many different fronts. We can't come to Britain. You think we have a lack of mujahedin waiting there? We've got hundreds and thousands of them. You're from Britain, you can use the media, you speak their language, you're an educated person, you have the passport, go there and utilise it. When the time comes for you to fight, if Allah wants that, you're going to do that. Don't worry about it.? So the war has many different fronts, and in the meantime that selfishness you were originally talking about is suspended until I get to an age where I can say: ?I've done my best now, I have to think of my individual soul,? and then, inshallah, I will go and fight.
 
Taseer: And Omar Sheikh Bakri?
 
Butt: I have respect for him. He's an aalim (scholar), and he's much older than me, but I have my differences with him as well. It came to a point where I could no longer keep myself affiliated with his group, not because I disrespect them in any way, but because it would have been hypocritical to be with them and hold these views. I need to break loose because the views I was going to give would not be the views of the organisation al-Muhajiroun.
 
Taseer: Was the parting peaceable?
 
Butt: With any organisation I've been with, the parting is like a divorce. It's quite messy. But we're Islamic-minded people and we're still in contact, and I have a lot of respect for them. They're still more vocal than the majority of the Muslims in this country.
 
Taseer: What was the route to Afghanistan?
 
Butt: Just through Pakistan. It really amazed me that anyone could do it. You could get anything you like across the border and at that time with the Pakistani government being very friendly, it was never guarded as it is today.
 
Taseer: That fight still continues?
 
Butt: Yes?the sad thing is that while the world media focuses on Iraq, a lot is happening in Afghanistan.
 
Taseer: Are people still going?
 
Butt: Yes, though not as many from Britain. The doors have been closed. They need people who are already trained. They don't have time to start training people and sending them over.
 
Taseer: What was your university experience like?
 
Butt: Until we got there [Wolverhampton], there had never been any Islamic activity. There was a group of 15 of us and we all decided to go to the same university and we recruited another ten to 15 in the next couple of months and we came out very explosively. We had Islamic awareness weeks, we demanded a prayer room, washing facilities.
 
Taseer: Was it radical?
 
Butt: It was absolutely radical and I think the university authorities felt really, really threatened. I even remember having visits from the so-called community leaders of the Muslims asking, ?What are you doing?? Wolverhampton is only a small city, but we were sticking posters all over it. It was a really good experience, we radicalised the university a lot.
 
Taseer: You were expelled. What for?
 
Butt: I was accused of getting Muslims to assault a homosexual student. Now I don't hide my views about homosexuality: in Islam it's forbidden. If someone wants to do it privately, go ahead and do it privately, don't come out publicly with it. At the time, we were the largest society on campus because all the Muslims had joined us. Our grant was ?500 and there was another society, I think the music society, which had fewer than 100 members and they had ?5,000-6,000. I was really pushing this; I went to the racial equality person. I wasn't as radical as I am today, but just as active and aggressive. But I got rejected. I realised that the racial equality board didn't see Muslims as a race, hence we didn't have equal rights.
 
Anyway, with the assault case, they eventually got some ?witnesses? to come forward. It was the most bizarre case?here I was in my final six months of university. I had spent two and a half years studying for a law and politics degree, and they were refusing to give not only the names of these witnesses, but not even their statements.
 
Taseer: But you didn't do it?
 
Butt: No, I did not do that at all. If I had done it, I would have come out openly. I would have acknowledged it. At that time, I believed more in political Islam, arguing, debating, having dialogues?this militant side of Islam came later. I was so surprised by the case. I wanted to say, ?How do I know you haven't just made this whole thing up?? Fair enough, the witnesses couldn't be present, but at least give us their statements, their names, just so we know they are not made-up people. By the time we got the solicitor involved, my year had collapsed and it would have taken me another two years to graduate. It was enough for me.
 
Taseer: Did you like being in Pakistan?
 
Butt: I loved it, I've never had a better two years in my life. I see Pakistan as the only country having the potential to lead the Muslims out of the disarray they are in today. I see Pakistan as that nation.
 
Taseer: But the government isn't to your taste?
 
Butt: Obviously the government is the problem. I think the people are the most amazing I have seen in my life: people who experience hardship every day, and still have faith that Allah will give them something. The problem is that you have this very tiny minority that is always portrayed as the majority of the opinion in Pakistan.
 
Taseer: Who rules Pakistan?
 
Butt: The elite, you know how it is.
 
Taseer: I know it's a big question, but what's your wish for the global order, how would you like to see it readjusted?
 
Butt: I don't see it happening in my lifetime. 1,400 years ago you had a small city-state in Medina, and within ten years of the Prophet (peace be upon him), Islam had spread to Egypt and all the way into Persia. I don't see why the rest of the world, the White House, 10 Downing Street, shouldn't come under the banner of Islam. And

Victim strikes back
Forced at gunpoint to bank, man kills back-seat suspect

By Sherri Drake
Contact
August 10, 2005

He said they'd gotten him two weeks ago in his front yard, forcing him to the ground with a gun and stealing $400.

But this time, 59-year-old Jacob Evans was ready.

Tuesday, the same two robbers returned, telling him to withdraw $10,000 from his bank, or die, he said. Instead, Evans deposited six bullets in one of them.

"I got prepared for them," Evans said, standing outside the Criminal Justice Center Tuesday night. "Today they acted a damn fool and came back."

Shortly after 2 p.m., Memphis police arrived at First Tennessee, at 1200 S. Third, and found one of the robbers shot to death, lying face down in the back seat of Evans's Lincoln Towncar.

About 20 minutes earlier, Evans was pulling up to his home in the 300 block of Edsel in South Memphis, when the two 20-something men came out from behind some hedges with guns, forced a friend of his out of the car and jumped in. Evans was in the driver's seat, one robber was in the front seat and another in the back.

Evans had just gotten off work at Hershey Foods, where he's a sanitation worker. He was wearing his uniform and a blue hairnet.

With guns pointed at Evans, the robbers told him to drive to a nearby bank to get some money. He told him he didn't bank there, but said he had an account at First Tennessee.

"If I didn't withdraw $10,000, they said they were going to kill me," he said.

As he was driving, Evans said he looked for police but didn't see any and tried to work out a plan. The bank's about two miles from his house.

He pulled up to the teller window and told the men he would need a withdrawal slip to get the money. The front-seat robber handed his 9mm pistol to the back-seat robber -- who already had a .22-caliber rifle -- and went inside to get the slip.

Evans noticed a security guard leaning against the bank's wall and mouthed to him: "Call police, I'm being robbed."

The robber, sitting directly behind the driver's seat, asked him what he said and Evans told him, "I didn't say a damn thing."

The man kept turning around nervously to look at the security guard, Evans said. That's when Evans reached under his seat and pulled out a .357 Magnum.

"When he turned around, I unloaded six rounds in him," Evans said. "He didn't have a chance."

Evans bought the gun in the parking lot of a gas station the day after he was robbed two weeks ago. He'd cleaned it up, putting baby oil in the revolver, so it'd be ready if he needed it.

Evans said he got out of the car and started to reload when the other suspect came out of the bank. "He took off running."

He tried to shoot that suspect too, but his gun wouldn't fire.

Someone inside the bank called 911. When employees heard the gunshots, the bank was immediately locked down and remained closed Tuesday, said spokesman Walter Dawson.

Late Tuesday, investigators were looking for the man who ran away and were working to identify the man who died, said Lt. Toney Armstrong.

After being questioned by police, Evans said they told him he was free to go.

Police said late Tuesday their investigation will be turned over to the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office, as a matter of routine.

Evans said he has only one regret. "I didn't kill the one that got away."

Tuesday night, his family drove up from Mississippi to be with Evans, who said he was happy to be alive.

"It's really not something to be proud of," he said. "But I'm happy it was them and not me."

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3990677,00.html

Pretty interesting, and disturbing, take on the tobacco settlement. Who needs those pesky legislative and constitutional follyswaddles anyway?


August 09, 2005, 8:05 a.m.
To the Ashtray of History
Taking aim at a greedy government mess.

By Christine Hall

Was this what was promised? Billions of dollars later and more than six years after the tobacco settlement was signed, American taxpayers and consumers deserve an answer. But they won't like it.
 
Back in the 1990s, state attorneys general sued "Big Tobacco" claiming that tobacco companies had lied about the health risks of smoking and run up state Medicaid costs in treating sick smokers over the years. Eventually, the tobacco companies decided to settle the state lawsuits for $246 billion. In the years since the signing of that settlement ? in reality, a permanent sales tax ? it's clear who are the winners and losers.

State governments did well. They won a staggering sum of money, to be doled out by tobacco companies over just the first 25 years, with payments continuing in perpetuity. States have so far spent most of the money on a wide range of programs unrelated to treating sick smokers or reducing smoking rates, according to an annual report by the General Accounting Office. The particulars can be unseemly. Kentucky, for example, reportedly spent $271,750 for improving the prawn industry, while North Carolina spent $100,000 on "motorsports research."

State attorneys general also came out winners. They discovered a new tool for growing their own power. Now, instead of waiting around for the legislature to raise taxes or pass new laws regulating industries, attorneys general can do it all themselves. As New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has since demonstrated, often all it takes is indictment-by-press conference, and pretty soon he has a settlement that puts (who else?) the attorney general in charge of regulating the industry.

Trial lawyers did well by the tobacco settlement, too. The trial bar was slated to get an estimated $13 billion, which for some worked out to $7,716 per hour, according to legal scholar Robert Levy, assuming the lawyers worked 24 hours per day, seven days per week, for 42 months. Trial lawyers reinvested a lot of the money in political campaigns and developing new litigation campaigns.

Big tobacco companies, as it turned out, did quite well by the settlement. They raised cigarette prices beyond the actual settlement costs and gained the states as partners in a cartel to hamstring competitors. Small tobacco companies that were never part of the state lawsuits or the multi-state settlement were required to make annual escrow payments to the states. Then, when the upstarts did better than expected and carved into the market share enjoyed by the majors ? and state revenue ? states responded by passing laws raising taxes, er, escrow payments. "All states have an interest in reducing ... sales [by non-settlement companies] in every state," Vermont's attorney general admonished his peers in 2003.

So where does that leave taxpayers, consumers, small businesses, and anyone concerned about unchecked government power? Holding the bag. Yet, despite the massive, unprecedented transfer of wealth and ambitious new regulatory regime unleashed by the tobacco settlement, it was all negotiated in a backroom deal. No legislator voted on it, no small businesses were consulted, and no taxpayer had a chance to lobby against the tax increases.

And the agreement, which was entered into by 46 state attorneys general, never gained the approval of Congress, an egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits a state from entering into an agreement or compact with another state without the consent of Congress.

Looking at the tobacco settlement, one begins to understand what the Founding Fathers feared when they wrote the Compact Clause. That's why the Competitive Enterprise Institute launched a lawsuit on August 2 challenging the tobacco settlement: to end such abuse of power and restore one essential constitutional check on government greed.

? Christine Hall is communications director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. To read more about CEI's challenge to the tobacco settlement, visit www.ControlAbuseofPower.org.

Very long, very interesting insight into how the powers that be in China view the US.

Disclaimer

This document is a translation of a paper written by a prominent Chinese political/academic leader. It was translated for the Commission?s review because it is vital that Commissioners be informed of the views and opinions of influential Chinese leaders, particularly views and opinions of the United States, its government, and its political system or pertaining to the nine areas of work and study in the Commission?s statutory mandate under P.L. 106-398 and P.L. 108-7. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this document are neither endorsed nor advocated by the Commission or any individual Commissioner. This document is posted to the Commission?s website in order to promote greater public understanding of China and its government, and the issues addressed by the Commission.

THE LOGIC OF THE AMERICAN HEGEMONY

By Wang Jisi

[Director, Institute of the American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]

The Study Times (xuexi shibao), 10 December 2003

The Expansion of Democracy Leads to Escalation of Hegemonic Thinking

The development and changes of America?s domestic democracy have strengthened the status of the United States as a hegemon, and have also enriched its hegemonic thoughts. Historically, democracy of the United States was mainly a democracy for white males. In the early years, white racism ran rampant among America?s politicians. The prejudice against the blacks held by Thomas Jefferson, one of its Founding Fathers, has been well known to all of us. Even Abraham Lincoln, famous for his emancipation of the black slaves, said there was an enormous gap determined by innate human nature between the whites and the blacks, which might forever prevent them from living together completely equally. America?s early ideology and hegemony were characterized mainly by its racism. As pointed out by the American historian Michael Hunt, ?the (past) American policy-makers measured other nations and states by a system of racial ladders. They displayed a hostile attitude toward those revolutions, especially those leftist revolutions, which deviated from the American model of revolution.? The racist element in American foreign policy was fully exposed in its attitude toward revolutions in Southeastern Asia, especially in China, and during the Vietnam War. In addition, America?s racial prejudice at home and ruthless violation of human rights, including McCarthyism of the 1950s, have all greatly reduced the appeal of the American democracy to the outside world.

During World War II, the colored people and ethnic minorities played a monumental role in defending the United States, which led to the beginning of racism?s self-destruction. During the Cold War, out of the necessity for national security and ideology, the Truman Administration repealed the system of racial segregation within the armed forces. In the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. cited the human rights principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and proved that the principle of ?all men are created equal? applied equally to white people and black people. After that, the American society has witnessed changes, especially during the 1980s and 1990s when floods of new immigrants came to the United States, exerting a far-reaching impact upon American democracy?s format and its political cohesiveness. Although in reality racism is far from being completely eradicated, it has become a hideously notorious thing in American politics. Racial equality and gender equality have become the principles of ?political correctness? by which the society must abide.

What is the root of the ?American people??a people that is in the thicket of globalization, a people that is receiving a great number of new immigrants, and a people that lacks a common culture, common race and common religion? What does it use to pull people together? The American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. explains this way: the United States needs values such as democracy, freedom and human rights now more than any period in its history to keep the country together. From this perspective, the U.S. foreign policy also has to accordingly reflect these ?American ideals,? because after all, diplomacy simply serves domestic politics. Thus, to display more American ideology and ?pursuit of democracy? in U.S. foreign policy has meant a more robust display of American hegemony in its diplomacy.

The diversification tendency in an American democracy has clearly been revealed in the U.S. foreign policies. To certain extent, it was America?s hegemonic policy against Cuba that created the fleeing of Cuban refugees, making it possible for the Cuban-American population to dramatically increase to today?s more than 1.3 million. In the meantime, these Cuban-Americans have exerted great influence upon local politics in states such as Florida, and upon the U.S. policy toward Cuba, thus intensifying the hostility of the U.S. government toward the Cuban government under the leadership of Castro. One of the consequences of the Vietnam War was the influx of large numbers of Vietnamese into the U.S. from southern Vietnam after the unification of Vietnam. The current Vietnamese population in the United States has reached over one million. The total number of Asian Americans nowadays has reached over 12.5 million. Within the U.S. diplomatic community, military community, intelligence community, and multinationals community, the percentage of ethnic minorities and non-white people is far higher than that of their races relative to the entire nation?s population. These communities dealing with foreign nations have employed Asian Americans to work in positions that interact with Asian countries; they have employed immigrants from Latin America to enhance contacts with Latin American countries; they have employed Iranian Americans, Arab Americans to gather intelligence on the Middle East, to engage in anti-terrorism campaigns; they have also used those American soldiers stationed in South Korea who have Korean blood to interact with the Koreans, etc. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is rarely concerned that these minority Americans might be used by nations that have ethnic ties with them to do harm to the United States. This is an important advantage in psychology and methodology in the U.S. diplomacy, i.e., the U.S. is able to use talented people regardless of race and ethnicity. Representing such advantage are Henry Kissinger, who is a Jew born in Germany; Zbignew Brzezinski, who was born in Poland; Madeleine Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia, and is the woman who has held the highest government office; and Colin Powell, whose parents came from Jamaica, who was born in the black slum of New York City?all of whom are testament to America?s diversified diplomacy. Giving important positions to these people has not only strengthened America?s hegemony internationally but also provided force to enhance nationalistic loyalty of the ethnic minorities at home.

     The disproportionate increases of ethnic minorities in numbers, percentage and political clout have posed challenges to social cohesion and traditional white culture on the one hand, they have also raised the level of attention the United States pays to the outside world on the other. The new immigrants that went to the United States in the last several decades, especially those political activists, have augmented America?s motivational impetus to conduct foreign expansion and ?human rights intervention.? Those who have decided to settle in the U.S. and those new immigrants who are political activists are usually dissents in their countries of origin, many of whom have used their persecutions in their native countries to push their ?new motherland? to reach their objectives which they would have otherwise been unable to realize in their native lands, and to make every effort to stay permanently in the United States and make an impact. For various reasons, they are more enthusiastic than the native-born Americans about demanding a more robust gesture in foreign interventions. We can safely say that interference with foreign countries? internal affairs meets the ?quest for democracy? voiced by these foreign-born American citizens.
   
In the post-Cold War world politics, ethnic and religious problems are remarkably obvious, which has considerably challenged the increasingly diversified American society. In his 1993 inaugural address, Clinton stressed that ?the line between domestic and foreign matters can no longer be clearly defined.? This point is particularly poignant when it comes to ethnic and religious problems. A stern warning from the 9/11 incident is that if unchecked, the world-wide ethnic and religious problems, especially the radical Islamic thoughts and forces, will have grave impact on America?s domestic stability and unity. The 9/11 incident has further extended the world-wide ?clash of civilizations? to the domestic arena of the United States, aggravated the contradictions between the political mainstream and various ethnicities, religions and cultural diversity, the contradictions between social control and citizens? rights, and the contradictions between an open immigration policy and anti-foreign sentiment. One of the measures to downgrade these contradictions is to strike, in the name of anti-terrorism, the international Islamic radical forces and the ?evil states,? in order to strengthen America?s world hegemony.

This subtle relationship between anti-terrorism efforts outside the U.S. and efforts to alleviate internal contradictions at home can only be understood but never be talked about by the American ruling group. After the 9/11 incident, the leaders of the United States have repeatedly emphasized that the terrorist attacks are not related to the Middle East policies of the United States, nor are they related to the ?clash of civilizations.? Their interpretation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been that because the United States represents liberty, democracy, human rights and tolerance, it is hated by international terrorist organizations and their sympathizers (the ?evil states). The latter represents tyranny, prejudice and hatred, sneering at human dignity, liberty and life. The Americans universally accept the proposition that the attacks on September 11 2001 are attacks on America?s democratic system and democratic ideals. In the speech given on the same day the attacks took place, President Bush stated that ? America is under attack, because we are the brightest lighthouse representing the liberty and opportunity in the world.? Two months after the attacks, Bush spoke on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, sending ?warmest greetings? to Muslims in the United States and the world, praising the Islamic religion for its ?teaching people kindness, compassion and peace,? and noted that Islam ?has been one of the fastest growing religions in the United States, with a current followers of several millions.? In the same speech, Bush also praised America?s efforts in reconstructing Afghanistan through humanitarian aid. On 13 December 2001, Bush again sent holiday greetings to Muslims on the occasion of Islamic New Year. These gestures sought to demonstrate America?s ?tolerance, inclusiveness? and ?kindness,? and attempted to put global resentment against and opposition to American hegemony into the category of ?anti-liberty, anti-democracy?, thus enhancing America?s domestic cohesiveness.

In historical perspective, we can see an immutable American tenet, i.e., the deep belief in the idea that ?a nation?s greatness depends on a world made safe for freedom.? As the society changes in the United States, especially as ethnic, religious and cultural diversity and democracy expand, the social and religious foundations for America?s hegemony has gradually shifted from white racism and Protestant ?Manifest Destiny? to ?universal values? such as freedom, democracy and human rights. President Bush?s speech at the 2002 Independence Day ceremony states that in today?s United States, ?there is no American race; there is only an American creed.? If America?s ideology based upon the core belief in liberty has provided American hegemony the spiritual foundation, democracy has provided the American hegemony institutional base, thus enabling the Americans to be united under the national flag. It is obvious that the enlargement of America?s hegemonic ambition since World War II coincides with the gradual enlargement of the American democracy and the growth of diversity in the United States. The two trends in turn complement each other. As Professor Wang Xi of the Indiana University of Pennsylvanian has analyzed, under the influence of America?s political culture, ?government is no longer viewed only as an imposing and oppressive power mechanism, but more often viewed as a type of ideology, a value system, a system of extraction and distribution of economic interests. When government becomes the absolute basis for public interest, to safeguard the interest of the government thus becomes the desire and obligations of the public.?

   
Nationalism and International Behavior Pattern Based on Domestic Experience

Nationalism within any country includes certain irrational elements. For example, nationalism normally implies such an idea that one?s own nation is the lovely, strong, peace-loving, generous one, and that the strengthening of one?s own nation is a bless for the entire mankind; and that certain other nations are ugly, small-minded, innately aggressive, and selfish, and that their rise is a disaster to the entire mankind. If we go beyond such nationalism, we will see that such belief is narrowed minded and lacking in persuasiveness, without historical, anthropological and sociological bases. But if we speak from our own nation?s perspective, such a belief is natural, and is rationalized by our own nation?s historical and cultural narratives. America?s nationalism is covered in beautiful clothes of freedom, democracy and market economy, thus disguising the irrational side to its public.
   
     America?s nationalism evolved around the formation of the Americans as a nation. Because the Americans have come from different races, cultures or religions, to develop a common political value system, that is to say an ideology, has been the main ingredient of the American nationalism. The Chinese American scholar Pei Minxing has pointed out in an article that the primary characteristic of the American nationalism is founded on its political ideals, not on its cultural or racial ideals. Pei?s article also reveals other features of the American nationalism, such as that the American nationalist prides comes from America?s material power, scientific achievement and its global influence; that the American patriotism is promoted by spontaneous societal forces rather than by the government; and that the American nationalism seeks triumphs, and it is forward looking, contrary to most other nations in the world that stress national tragedies, looking back into history, thus gaining little sympathy from the Americans who adore winners and victories. These are insightful conclusions.

     The pride of the Americans is manifested not only in their praise and defense of their nation, but also in their criticism of it. The level of relentlessness and profundity of criticisms launched against America?s historical events, racism, and other social illnesses by some Americans thinkers and scholars has even surpassed that by foreigners. Many of America?s literary writings, television and film programs have portrayed Congressmen, even the president, as bad guys. But contemporary Americans almost never regard any foreign country as a good example to emulate, or even think American?s ugly and evil behaviors have surpassed anybody else?s ugly and evil behaviors. In other words, they have seen the evil of the United States, but they have not found any country that is better than the United States. They will not be on the side of America?s enemy because they have criticized America. The renowned Leftist thinker Norman Chomsky has since 1971 strongly criticized America?s own terrorist acts, but he has also pointed out in the meantime that ?these people (such as Osama bin Laden) have in the past twenty years brutally hurt the poor and oppressed peoples in their countries. Terrorists never care about the people.? An American scholar who paid a visit to China before the Iraq war was vehemently opposed to the war, but he also opined that once the war broke out, he would hope the U.S. could finish it off quickly, minimizing the casualty of the U.S. troops. Chalmers Johnson, who has sharply lambasted the ?American imperial diplomacy,? writes that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union established satellite countries in Eastern Europe while the United States also did the similar thing Asia; that now ?the U.S. officials and media have always described countries such as Iraq and North Korea as ?rogue nations,? but we must ask ourselves if we ourselves have become a rogue superpower.? Nevertheless, Johnson has failed to say, and he will never say, that the behaviors of the United States are worse that those of the Soviet Union, Iraq and North Korea.
   
The American nationalism is indeed promoted by spontaneous societal forces rather than by the government, and there is rarely any form of official media or ?government-employed literati.? The Americans are proud of this fact. If the American media want the public to doubt the accuracy of foreign (especially those deemed dictatorial nations) reports, all they have to do is to say ?this is according to this nation?s official media.? This is a primary reason why the American public finds it difficult to understand or have sympathy with other countries? nationalism and anti-Americanism. In addition, compared to people in places like Europe, the percentage of the Americans who travel abroad and live abroad is very low. Social elite in today?s United States were mostly born after the Second World War, having been basking in an environment where domestic stability and affluence are the rule (having ?freedoms from fear and want?). It is said that a man with a full stomach can not understand the man with an empty one. In a similar vein, it is very difficult for the Americans to imagine, let alone accept, the thinking and life style of other nations, especially other poor nations.

    The Americans are an extravert nation. They do not avoid self interest, and regard self interest and public interest as non-contradictory. The Americans seldom hide their purpose of seeking self-interest and their arrogance in diplomacy. In 1998, the then Secretary of State Albright defended the U.S. action to launch cruise missiles against Iraq by saying that ?if we are forced to use arms, that?s because we are the United States. We are an indispensable nation. We stand tall, and see far out.? In a few words, Albright fully displayed an American mindset that embodies this logic: the United States is like a corporation in a free market economy, it provides the world certain public products (stability, economic growth, etc). The motive of a corporation is to seek profit for itself, but it also pays taxes, giving out products for the public, thus collaterally benefiting the society. By the same token, the motive of the United States is of course selfish, but other nations all need the United States, therefore it is providing products for the benefit of the public; the more the United States does for itself, the more it contributes to the world, thus America?s self interest is public interest as well. Regarding the relationship between corporations and society, Justin Dart, a businessman and one of President Ronald Reagan?s close friends and advisors once said that ?I have never sought to build a corporation for the benefit of humanity. I feel if a corporation employs many people, has made lot of money, it is in fact beneficial to humanity. Everything we do involves greed, I don?t think there is anything wrong with it.? The words of Albright and Dart represent America?s understanding of corporate interest and national interest. They have candidly revealed their self interest without feeling any moral defect. Why is it that the Americans cannot apply their domestic mechanisms which are marked by democratic, equal and moderate characteristics to maintain their international interest, thus avoiding frequently resorting to use of power politics or even force? The answer to this question can be found in the American way of thinking and behavior patterns.
   
     Individualism is the foundation of America?s free and democratic ideals. From childhood onward, every American is indoctrinated with individualism. They worship individual struggle to triumph among fierce and ruthless social competitions, to achieve a sense of security and satisfy desires for accomplishments, thus becoming pioneers and leaders in their own professions. Compared with developed countries in Europe and with Japan, the American style free-wheeling economic ideal stresses individuals and corporate self-reliance, rather than dependence on government and social welfare. It emphasizes the point that individual interest is the motivating force behind social progress and economic growth; that people should let out their natural instinct to compete freely, to find the perfect balance of manpower and material power. In schools, American children are encouraged to behavior differently from the crowd, to develop leadership qualities. These social customs and way of thinking are diametrically opposite to the Chinese way of social behavior whereby reliance on family, groups and organizations is the key to solving individuals? problems, whereby all individual achievements belong to the collective whole, to the group?s leaders. The Americans are proud of having developed leadership qualities, and there are competitions everywhere. Therefore, in the international arena, Americans naturally seek a ?leadership position? in a ?if not me, who else?? manner. The Americans will not behave like someone in a Confucian society where the rule is ?the first bird that sticks its head out gets shot.?

     In the early history of the United States, the rule of law was not complete, frontiers were vast and wide. In such an environment, the society encouraged the role of ?lone heroes? who typically embodied the spirit of defiance against the privileged and the powerful, the worship of force and masculinity, and the readiness to help others for a just cause. When this Western cowboy spirit is applied to the current international arena where lack of authority and rule of law, fierce competition and anarchy reign, we naturally have an American style bullying and greedy desire for leadership positions. An American sociologist pointed out during the Cold War, ?an American spends his entire life to pursue a certain sense of security, but his firm clinging to individualism in turns makes the sense of security always steps away from him. The American nation is like an American individual, behaving self-destructively in material, social and moral aspects to acquire a certain sense of security that will never be reached, because America is not willing to get security through equality and cooperation but through achieving superiority and imposing its own will upon other regions in the world.? If these words are true, then today?s unilateralism in American diplomacy, and stubborn insistence on absolute military superiority are the natural manifestations in the international arena of the deep mentality that worships heroes and American style individualism.
   
     Regarding the American tradition of achieving individual dreams through wars, another American scholar Robertson writes, ?The American nation today is often regarded as an individual in capital letters. An individual?s character, his virtues and ideals belong to the nation. The Americans still are talking about the stories of the American nation, still believing in the solidarity, great goals and ultimate destiny of the American nation. These stories share themes that involve large scale organized actions, often revealing nationalism and reflecting the wars for the ideal of liberty. The Americans? wars are revolutions, civil wars on the global scale. The goals of these wars are liberty, the destruction of slavery in all forms and shapes, and the independence of individuals and nations. In the mythology of America, wars reveal the ideals that as long as the nation is united, organized and willing to sacrifice all manpower and material power to achieve desired goals, the Americans can achieve whatever they want to achieve, can build many nations or reconstruct many societies, can speed up progress, and bring freedom and democracy to the world.?
   
     These words by Robertson were written in 1986. Since then, the Americans have the Gulf War and the Iraq War, continuing to write its war mythology with the models, rationality, objectives and way of domestic mobilization exactly as described by Robertson, i.e., America?s wars are all one about ?justice overcoming evil,? demanding the enemy?s unconstitutional surrender. As the American sociologist Seymour Lipset has stated, ?Unlike other countries, we seldom believe we are only defending our own national interest. Because every war is a struggle between good and evil, the only acceptable outcome is the enemy?s unconditional surrender.?

     Then, in the political, social and cultural tradition of America, has there been a tendency to support violence in order to sustain its hegemonic behavior? The answer to this question must be provided carefully, because every culture, every nation embodies the dual traditions of peace and violence. It is hard to say that the American nation is more of a worshipper of violence than others. But, in the past several decades, the United States has frequently waged wars overseas, while in the meantime has constantly claimed that the United States has been more peace-loving than others, which is quite ironic, no matter how you look at it. When interpreting why American diplomacy has been successful, the American scholar Walter Russell Meade analyzes America?s ?warlike disposition.? He states that ?people often say the American people are more religious than its allies in Western Europe. Equally true is that they are also more militaristic.? About the tradition of violence in American society, the American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. makes an insightful point, ?We always think ourselves as a moderate, tolerant and kind nation, a nation ruled by laws rather than by monarchs?But this is never the only disposition in our tradition, because we have always been a nation that worships violence. Failing to see this, we will not be able to face the reality of our nation. We must admit that we have certain destructive desires inside our body. It comes from the darkness and tension of our social systems in history. After all, we started with slaughtering the Indians and enslaving the blacks. There is no doubt that we did these things in the past by holding the Bible and prayers, but nobody can be so aware of our mission as we are. In its deepest place, in its tradition, in its social institutions, in its conditioned reflections and its soul buries a tendency for violence?We cannot escape such accusation that we are indeed a terrifying nation, because within this decade we killed three outstanding leaders that had represented American ideals to the world (author?s note: the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King). We are a terrifying nation because in the past three years we have been engaging in a war on the other side of the globe with a weak nation, a war that has no relation with our national security and interest. (author?s note: the Vietnam War) We are a terrifying nation because many in the world are questioning the inner connection between us and the conclusions drawn by America?s most honest friend and scholar Dennis Brogan (a British scholar) that ?a nation that is innately blood thirsty domestically happens to be the world?s first and only nation that has ever dropped atomic weapons. Are we sure this is just a coincidence?? We are a terrifying nation because our various violent actions, domestic and abroad, have not awakened the conscience of our politicians, or weakened our transcendental conviction about the absolute accuracy of our moral uprightness.?

Domestic Restrictions on the U.S. Hegemonic Behavior

It is hard to imagine in countries other than the United States to have somebody such as Schlesinger who is a famous scholar, with experience of being a special advisor to President Kennedy, to so severely and harshly criticize his own nation?s ugly characteristics, even calling his own nation the ?most terrifying one.? Among politicians, extraordinarily outstanding is Kenney and Johnson?s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Facing all kinds of criticisms and ridicules, he bravely disclosed the unspeakable secrets of American policy makers during the Vietnam War, and published a memoir refuting his own earlier words and actions. Furthermore, by learning lessons from the Vietnam War, he sharply criticized America?s post-Cold War foreign and defense policies. Many American thinkers, critics mentioned in this article have written reflective works critical of the United States. Although, due to their limited experiences and political views, their criticisms are not yet good enough, it is sufficient to prove that the Americans are willing to self examining themselves and are good at it. As an elite group, these critics are very active in America?s universities and colleges, research institutes and think tanks that have influence over government policies. In addition to pursuing scholarship and social conscience, many of them have their own political ambitions and self-interest on their minds. In the game of political competition and career positioning for bureaucratic appointments, political advisors seek to keep certain distance from the current policies, become critical of the prevailing societal pathologies, carrying out criticisms that are designed to help by a little bit of constructive criticism. This practice sometimes can be good for a person?s future. No matter what motivates them, and no matter how effective they are, the intellectual elite?s criticisms and questioning of the government have served to somewhat curb America?s hegemonic thinking and actions.

     Mechanisms within American politics such as checks and balances, supervision by public opinion, and popular participation have also set several limitations for America?s behaviors abroad and America?s policy options. The first of these limitations is the restriction on power and authority. Although the president enjoys so-called ?king?s power? in foreign relations, he is still restricted by forces from the Congress, the National Security Council, the State Department , the Defense Department, and other executive organizations when it comes to issues such as waging large scaled wars, defense budget, military strategy, and major foreign policy initiatives, thus making it impossible for him to proceed at will, to take actions entirely according to his individual desires and political interest. As a whole, America?s foreign policy serves its long-term national interest, unlike Nazi Germany under Hitler or Iraq under Saddam Hussein whose foreign policies went to the fanatic extreme, and became short-sighted and irrational.
   
The latter stage of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s marks the zenith in history of American foreign policy?s fanaticism, short-sightedness and irrationality. At least over one million Vietnamese and over fifty thousand Americans died directly as a result of this war. The Americans were forced to withdraw from Vietnam in 1973, ultimately leading to a defeat that has brought tremendous shame and humiliation to the American nation. The end of the Vietnam War was primarily a consequence of international factors, but the anti-war movement in the backdrop of the civil-rights movement was also a major reason why President Johnson declined to run for re-election and why the Nixon Administration decided to withdraw the U.S. forces from Vietnam. Nixon once helplessly remarked, ?The Vietnam War was not lost in the battle fields in Vietnam, but in the halls of the Congress, in the offices of major newspapers and television editors, and in the classrooms of outstanding universities and colleges.?  Indeed, at the time when Nixon made these remarks, he still had power to continue this war, but he had lost the political basis and moral authority for doing so.  

     Secondly, there are the procedural restrictions. Compared to other hegemonic powers in history, the level of transparency in America?s foreign policy making is higher, so is its predictability. In September 2002, the U.S. National Security Strategy Report announced the ?preemptive strike? strategy, causing strong criticisms from many countries. But if the U.S. decides to launch a preemptive strike against another country, it has to issue a public military threat to that country before the actual strike takes place, only then will the U.S. take advantage of the crisis, setting the bottom lines of concessions, creating waves of propaganda domestically and abroad, and consulting its allies. The U.S. will not launch blitzkriegs as did during the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Japan?s attacks on Pearl Harbor, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Yet this does not by any means demonstrate the ?good will? of the American hegemony. Instead, it tells us that the complexity of the U.S. decision-making process provides our countries with opportunities to figure out responses to the crisis, and to find out ways to influence the U.S. decision-making process lest the situation gets totally out of control.

The third is the moral restriction. Due to the diversity in politics, culture, and religion, the U.S. government has no way of monopolizing moral resources. It cannot proclaim itself as the ultimate judge of justice. As the outcome of the Vietnam War shows, the extreme unjust action of hegemony will eventually lose more support within the United States. When America?s diplomatic isolation, the persistence and cruelty of the war, the death toll, the incompetence of the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government, and the military attacks by the brave and heroic Vietnamese people all became undeniable reality to the American public, any defense and mobilization for the war became futile. Since then, all of the U.S. military interventions overseas have been overshadowed by the Vietnam War, forcing the government to set a threshold for the duration of military operations, sustainable casualty level, adversary?s civilian deaths etc.    
   
     The fourth is the restriction by information dissemination. Although the U.S. government has done its best to control news media during the post-Cold War overseas military operations, especially since the 9/11 attacks the U.S. media has become more homogenized in its editorial opinions, information will not be blocked after all in the global information age. The global challenges before or after the Iraq war, anti-American public opinions and anti-American demonstrations have caused considerable shocks in the American media, think tanks and opinion polls. In 1970, 4.7% of the American population was foreign born. By 2000, the number reached 10.4%, i.e., 28.379 million Americans were foreign born, about half of the French population, almost close to the entire Canadian population. Therefore, although compared with other developed countries, Americans with experience of traveling abroad are not as numerous, resources for the Americans to understand foreign countries are extraordinarily rich, and the information on international affairs is also highly developed.

     Conclusions

In sum, the American ideology based upon the individual right to freedom constitutes the conceptual foundation for the American hegemonism. Domestic democracy constitutes the institutional foundation for this simplistic value system, while expansion of democracy as a result of the development of social diversity makes this value system more adaptable to a wider area, thus forming a ?tyranny of the majority? in concept. This value system has gradually gone beyond white racism and the Protestant ?manifest destiny,? manifesting itself in foreign affairs as a special form of American nationalism, causing the ballooning of hegemonic thinking. Experience in domestic social development has made the Americans rarely mindful of morality while pursuing their national self interest, and made them full of self-righteous desire for world leadership positions. In the meantime, there are still some restrictions to American hegemonism, preventing it from going to fanaticism and short-sightedness, as demonstrated in the self-restraining and self-examining factors embedded in America?s checks and balances system, decision making procedures, social structure and cultural traditions.

    To study the ideological foundation of America?s hegemonism does not contradict with digging into American hegemonism?s economic motivation, strategic interest incentives and domestic political rationalities. In fact, they complement each other. What needs to be stressed is that the simple logic that ?economics is the foundation of politics, and politics is the focal expression of economics? cannot provide complete interpretation for America?s international actions. The important feature of the American hegemonism is the American nation?s irrational impulse, the intensity of which is almost religious. The strength of America?s material power and the progress in sciences and technologies has partially come from this impulse. This irrational impulse has also caused America?s global expansionism, and subsequently the outside world?s resistance, repulsion and confusion. We can partially interpret America?s 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War from the perspective of economic factors such as oil. But such interpretation is anemic when it comes to the Kosovo War. The war in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, the Korea War, etc, are all inseparable with certain geopolitical considerations, but are all unconnected with economic motivations. But all the wars mentioned above are related to America?s value system, without any exception.

     Lastly, let us go back to the beginning when we discuss the differences among hegemonic status, hegemonic thinking, and hegemonic behavior. Since the Cold War gradually came to a close, people have been expecting the decline of the American hegemonism and the arrival of the age of multipolarity. Yet the reality is that the American hegemony all over the world has become gradually transparent, while our own expression for multipolarity has evolved from ?accelerated development? [of multipolarity] to ?development [of multipolarity] through detours.? The course of history has proven that specific forms of international patterns can only be met but not be acquired. The rapid disintegration and disappearance of the Soviet Union has been quite unexpected, and the rise of America?s hegemonic status has also been against people?s wishes. America?s hegemony will never be an eternal situation, but we have to wait to see when history will show us the rapid decline of the United States.
   
     It is unrealistic for now to drag the U.S. from the position of hegemony and to promote other power centers to a higher level, because it is beyond the ability of any nation or group of nations at the current stage. But the outside world can exert influence upon America?s hegemonic policies and actions, analyze and criticize America?s hegemonic thinking. The 9/11 attacks have been strong shocks to the American hegemony, yet these shocks have not further divided the American society (the organizer of the attacks were not necessarily pre-disposed to have this goal in mind). On the contrary, the attacks have strengthened America?s domestic cohesiveness, further stimulated America?s conservatism, nationalism and xenophobia, thus in reality leading to the formation of a U.S.-led international anti-terror front, and further consolidated America?s hegemonic status. It is thus clear now that to use terrorist acts to struggle against America?s hegemony can only reach the opposite goal. Meanwhile, it is not cost-effective and worthwhile to get into an arms race and military confrontation with the United States. To effectively impede America?s hegemonic behaviors, in addition to diplomatic dealings in the international arena, we must more deeply understand the politics, economics, society and culture of the United States, so that we can fully take advantage of those factors within the American society that serve to restrain America?s state hegemonic behaviors.

In this analysis, we can see that the domestic roots of America?s hegemonism are deep and solid. Before the U.S. falls from its hegemonic height, in order to shake its hegemonic thinking, we must eradicate America?s unitary ideology of freedom, change America?s nationalism and conceptual framework, make them believe that there are social systems and life styles in the world that are more admirable than America?s. When hearing foreigners? criticism of America?s intervention everywhere, Americans often smugly quip, ?of course, people all over the world are shouting ?Yankees, Go home!? but they always add, ?bring me with you.? This is the logic of the American hegemony! We can therefore conclude that only when there are no more boisterous assemblies of immigration and visa applicants in front of various American embassies overseas, and only when an outgoing emigration occurs in the United States, will the American hegemonic mentality be extinguished, will the age of multipolarity arrive.

http://www.uscc.gov/researchpapers/translated_articles/2005/05_03_23_logic_of_the_american_hegemony.htm

At the end of the last election there were a lot of charges made that Republicans worked to surpress voter turnout. Many of those charges were widely reported.

What follows is the American Center for Voting Rights examination of charges made against both Democrats and Republicans. I've posted the charges made against Democarts first.

Thinks it's worth noting that the most egregious charges are the least reported. You can find the report in total at:

http://www.ac4vr.com/reports/072005/default.html


Incidents Of Voter Intimidation & Suppression

(A) Five Democrat Operatives In Milwaukee Charged With Slashing Tires Of Republican Vans On Morning Of Election Day (60) (Exhibit E)

On Monday, January 24, 2005, five Democrat operatives were charged with felony counts of ?criminal damage to property? for slashing the tires of 25 get-out-the-vote vans rented by Republicans early on the morning of Election Day. The vans had been rented by Republicans to help transport observers and voters to the polls on Election Day. The five individuals charged in the case were all paid Democrat operatives. Two defendants in the case are the sons of prominent Milwaukee Democrats: U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, Chairman of the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Milwaukee. (61) The following is a list of the individuals charged with slashing tires on the morning of November 2, 2004, and their connections to the Democrat campaign in 2004:

Michael J. Pratt
Paid $7,965.53 by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 2004
Pratt?s father is former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, who chaired the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Milwaukee
Sowande Ajumoke Omodunde (a.k.a ?Supreme Solar Allah?)
Paid $6,059.83 by Gwen Moore for Congress and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 2004
Son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Lewis Gibson Caldwell, III
Paid $4,639.09 by Gwen Moore for Congress and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 2004
Lavelle Mohammad
Paid $8,858.50 by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and America Coming Together ($966 for canvassing work in June and July) in 2004
Justin J. Howell
Paid $2,550.29 in 2004 by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (62)
According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, on the day before the election, DNC consultant Opel Simmons witnessed individuals at the Democratic headquarters in Milwaukee discussing a plan to go to the Republican campaign office and cover it with yard signs, placards and bumper stickers. They referred to their plan as ?Operation Elephant Takeover.? However, upon learning that there were security guards at the Republican headquarters, they called off the operation. (63)
According to the complaint, at about 3 a.m. on Election Day, several people at the Democratic headquarters were gearing up for another project. Some of them dressed in what was described as ?Mission Impossible? type gear ? black outfits and knit caps. Simmons asked them what they were up to and warned them about the security guard. One of them told Simmons, ?Oh, man, you don?t want to know, you don?t want to know.? They were laughing and joking and continued to tell Simmons that he did not want to know what they were going to do. (64)

About 20 minutes later, the group returned to Democrat headquarters very excited, saying things like:

?They won?t go anywhere now, man, we got ?em, we got ?em?
?Man, I walked right past the security guard. He didn?t even know anything was going on.?
?That?s ?cause, you know, I was acting all crazy, you know, I was acting crazy. I even let him watch me piss.? (65)
The group went on talking about the affair and described the sound of the air escaping the tires. There was apparently much bragging as they described their various roles in the escapade. Mohammad was the ?deception guy? who walked around acting drunk. According to the criminal complaint, when Simmons asked them what was going on, defendant Michael Pratt told him, ?We got ?em. We hit the tires.? Simmons told investigators that at some point on Election Day a staffer at Democrat headquarters pulled an article on the tire-slashing incident from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?s website. Simmons said that upon seeing the article, defendant Lavelle Mohammad said he wanted to frame it and put it on his wall. Simmons said he did not talk to any of the other defendants about the tire slashing incident over the course of Election Day. (66)
While the Kerry-Edwards campaign and state Democrats denied knowledge of the plan to vandalize the Republican get-out-the-vote vehicles, the vehicle used by the defendants was rented by Simmons, a political consultant from Virginia working for the DNC in Wisconsin. According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Simmons told police that he had rented the vehicle ?to be used by his workers for their campaign activities.? When questioned by police on the night of November 2, Simmons said he knew that five of his workers were involved in slashing tires at Republican headquarters early that morning, and identified all five defendants to police. (67)

In all, forty tires on 25 separate vehicles were slashed in the incident causing $4,192.35 of damage to the tires, plus $1,125 in towing charges. Since the damage exceeded the $2,500 threshold for a felony, the five were charged with felony ?criminal damage to property,? which carries a maximum punishment of 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The five defendants pleaded not guilty at their March 4 arraignments. (68) A trial was originally scheduled for mid-July, but has since been postponed until January 2006. (69)

(B) Court Issues Injunction Against Democrat Operatives Targeting Ohio Voters With Phone Calls Providing Deceptive Information to Voters

During the U.S. House Administration Committee hearings in March 2005, a common point of inquiry was the issue of phone calls made in an apparent effort to misdirect voters. The committee?s Ranking Member, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA), stated that Ohio voters were ?disenfranchised? when ?voters were told ? that the presidential election would be on Wednesday the 3rd of November as opposed to November 2nd.? (70)

Ohio voters who had identified themselves as Republicans received telephone calls telling them that the election was to be held a day later than Election Day, that their polling locations had been changed and that they could only vote if they brought four separate pieces of identification to the poll. This information was intentionally deceptive and intended to direct voters to a polling place where they would not be able to cast a ballot.

The Marion County Common Pleas Court issued a temporary restraining order against the Marion and Greene County Democratic Parties, the Ohio Democratic Party and America Coming Together (ACT) enjoining them from making inaccurate and deceptive phone calls to targeted voters. (71) (Exhibit F) The judge originally assigned to the case recused himself because he had ?personally received a phone call? like the one described by the plaintiff in which incorrect information about date of the election and polling place was given, a point he noted in the Judgment Entry he signed effectuating his recusal. The Ohio Supreme Court appointed a visiting judge to hear the case who then issued a temporary restraining order against the county and state Democrat parties and against ACT. (72)

Judge David C. Faulkner ordered state and local Democrats and ACT to stop their calls ?misstating the date of the November 2, 2004 election? and ?directing [voters] to the wrong location to which they should report to vote.? (73) Faulkner?s restraining order specifically stopped the Democrats from the following activities:

?Any acts of interfering in any way with the rights of Ohio registered voters to vote in the November 2, 2004 election, including, but not limited to, telephoning or contacting in any way any such registered voters and misstating the date of the November 2, 2004 election, directing them to the wrong location to which they should report to vote, telling such voters that they must bring certain documentation to the polls in order to vote and suggesting to, telling or implying to said voters that there are procedural and/or documentary hurdles they must overcome in order to vote in the November 2, 2004 election.? (74)
The Marion County Democratic Party provided an affidavit in the case that explained its role in the matter. The affidavit, as completed by Cathy Chaffin, Chair of the Marion County Democratic Party, explained that Kerry-Edwards campaign staffers made the misleading phone calls blocked by Judge Faulker?s order. Chaffin stated in the affidavit that once she became aware that Kerry-Edwards staffers were using her office space to make calls giving ?the wrong polling location? to voters, she tried multiple times to get them to stop the calls, to the point of threatening to kick them out of the office if the calls did not stop. Below are the key points from Chaffin?s affidavit. (75)
The Marion County Democratic Party provided space to the Kerry-Edwards campaign for use as its campaign headquarters.
Ms. Chaffin became aware that Kerry-Edwards staffers were placing telephone calls to voters and giving out voting locations and ?that the wrong polling location was being given.?
Ms. Chaffin called Kerry-Edwards campaign staffer Jim Secreto and told him the activity must stop. She was assured that it would stop.
A few days later, Ms. Chaffin learned that the phone calls were continuing. She again told Mr. Secreto to stop and again was told that the activity would cease.
Finally, on Election Day, Ms. Chaffin learned that the telephone calls were still being made. At that time, she told Mr. Secreto that if the calls did not stop, he would have to leave Marion County Democratic Headquarters. (76)
The case is still pending before the Marion County Court of Common Pleas.
(C) Court Issues Injunction Against Democratic National Committee Ordering It To Stop Distributing Intimidating Materials To Republican Volunteers In Florida

On Election Day 2004, a Seminole County, Florida, court stopped the DNC and state Democratic Party from ?further intimidation? and dissemination of materials that were ?designed or intended to intimidate or unduly threaten the activities of poll watchers? organized by the Florida Republican Party. (77) (Exhibit G)

Florida law allows all candidates and political parties to have observers in polling places to monitor the conduct of the election. Both the Florida Republican Party and the state Democratic Party organized thousands of volunteers to participate in the election observers in polling locations across Florida. (78)

Under Florida law, the names and addresses of volunteer poll observers are filed with election officials in advance of the election. The DNC and Florida Democrat Partyic obtained these records on the identity of Republican poll observers and sought to prevent them from volunteering by sending them a letter threatening legal action against them personally. The letter, entitled ?IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE,? stated that each poll watcher receiving the document had ?now been provided notice of the law.? (79) (Exhibit H)

Individual volunteers who received the letter threatening legal action by the DNC went to court in Seminole County and obtained an injunction against the DNC and the Florida Democratic Party. (80) Seminole Circuit Judge Nancy Alley ordered the DNC, Florida Democratic Party and Democratic Executive Committee of Seminole County to stop ?further intimidation, further dissemination of these materials ? designed or intended to intimidate or unduly threaten the activities of poll watchers who are duly carrying out their responsibilities? granted under Florida law. The court ruled that the flyer constituted a ?misrepresentation of [poll observers?] legal rights and obligations.? (81) The DNC sought an emergency appeal of the trial court?s order to the Florida Appeals Court but was rebuffed. (82) (Exhibit I)

(D) Intimidating And Misleading Phone Calls To GOP Volunteers Made By President Bill Clinton And DNC General Counsel Joe Sandler In Florida

In addition to the intimidating letters sent by the DNC to Republican volunteers, the DNC paid for recorded phone calls to Republican poll observers? homes in Florida featuring the same message that the court in Seminole County found to be intimidating and misleading.

These phone calls were recorded by former President Bill Clinton and DNC General Counsel Joe Sandler. The call from Sandler said, ?Please be advised that any challenge to a voter must be stated in writing, under oath, and that you must have direct and first-hand knowledge of the voter?s ineligibility. Interfering with a citizen?s right to vote is a serious offense and swearing out a false statement is a felony. Violations will be referred to federal and state prosecutors.? The recording finished by noting, ?This call is paid for by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org, not authorized by any candidate.? (83) (Exhibit J)

(E) Court Orders MoveOn.org To Cease Voter Intimidation And Harassment In Ohio

On Election Day, individuals in Franklin County, Ohio, were threatened and harassed at their polling places by agents of MoveOn.org after being asked about their voting preference and revealing their intention to vote Republican. Similar situations are alleged to have occurred elsewhere around the state and prompted a lawsuit filed in the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. Voters were intimidated by MoveOn.org in an attempt to dissuade them from voting for George W. Bush or in an attempt to harass them after they voted. (84) (Exhibit K)

Examples of such intimidation include one plaintiff who arrived at his polling place and was called over to a table operated by MoveOn.org that promised ?Free Coffee.? The plaintiff asked for a cup of coffee, was asked if he would voter for Kerry, and responded that he would not. The person at the table refused him a cup of coffee. The plaintiff then noticed that particular individual and others standing near the plaintiff?s car. When he exited the polling place, the MoveOn.org table was placed in front of his car, blocking his exit. When he asked them to move, the individuals harassed him, took his picture and recorded his license plate. (85)

Another voter noticed a loud and boisterous gentleman at her polling place wearing a ?Voting Rights Staff? badge and standing well within 100 feet of the polling place. In fact, he stood right outside one plaintiff?s voting booth and told her that she only had a few seconds left and needed to make her final vote. These plaintiffs sought, and received, a temporary restraining order against MoveOn.org. The complaint has subsequently been amended to include allegations of similar acts by agents of MoveOn.org that occurred elsewhere in the state. (86)

(F) Ohio Court Ordered Democrat Polling Place Challengers To Remove Deceptive Arm Bands and Badges

On Election Day, several Lucas County voters brought suit against the Lucas County Board of Elections and Democratic challengers in the polling place who were wearing armbands and/or badges identifying them as ?Voter Protection Staff,? ?Voting Rights Staff,? and other similar terms. The Lucas County Court of Common Pleas granted the temporary restraining order prohibiting the use of such intimidating insignia. (87) (Exhibit L)

(G) Violence Against Republican Volunteers In Philadelphia On Election Day

Philadelphia has a long history of vote fraud and intimidation. (88) According to press and police reports filed on November 2, this past election was no different. Reports indicate that Republican volunteers in Philadelphia were violently intimidated by Democrat activists on Election Day 2004.

One Republican activist, working as a Bush campaign legal volunteer to monitor the vote in Philadelphia, was ?cornered in a parking lot by roughly 10 large men, whom the police later identified as ?union goons.?? The men tried to tip over the minivan the Republican attorneys were sharing, ?punching it relentlessly, breaking parts off and failing to drag us out, they chased us in and out of the dense urban traffic.? It took ?a frantic 911 call and a police roadblock? to stop the assault, and the GOP volunteers ?had to be secreted out of town to safety by a police escort.? (89) (Exhibit M)

According to police reports filed after the incident, the union members? SUV was a rental vehicle. (90) (Exhibit N) On Election Day, rental vehicles were used all over the city ?primarily by the parties ? for transporting voters and election monitors.? (91)

(H) Union-Coordinated Violence And Intimidation Against Republican Campaign Offices And Volunteers

On October 5, a Bush-Cheney campaign volunteer in Orlando had his arm broken when trying to stop union activists from storming the campaign office. This incident was part of a series of simultaneous demonstrations coordinated by the AFL-CIO against Bush-Cheney campaign offices in 20 cities, intimidating campaign volunteers with violence and vandalism. In Orlando, AFL-CIO members stormed and ransacked the Bush-Cheney field office as part of what one local newscaster called a ?coordinated attack against the Bush-Cheney campaign.? Protesters also defaced posters of President Bush and dumped piles of letters on to the floor of the office. Several protesters in Orlando faced possible assault charges as a result of the incident. (92)

As part of the 20-city anti-Bush protest, more than 100 AFL-CIO members ?stormed? the Bush-Cheney campaign?s Miami office and ?pushed volunteers? inside. Three dozen union members rushed a campaign office in Tampa, shaking up elderly volunteers. (93) Union members staged an ?invasion? of the Republican campaign office in West Allis, Wisconsin, where police were called after 50 activists ?marched right in? and ?took over the place for about 30 minutes? with bullhorns and chanting. (94)

(I) Violence And Other Incidents of Intimidation

In 2004, Republicans were subject to an aggressive and sometimes violent campaign of harassment and intimidation orchestrated by Kerry supporters. At least three Bush-Cheney offices were shot at during the election season. A swastika was burned into the front yard of a Bush-Cheney supporter in Madison, Wisconsin. Other incidents included offices burglarized, windows smashed, tires slashed and other property damage. The following is a timeline of documented election-related violence and intimidation against the Bush-Cheney ?04 campaign and Republicans in 2004.

 

September 2, 2004: Gun Shot Fired Into Huntington, WV, Republican Headquarters. (95)

September 3, 2004: Windows Broken, Anti-Bush Messages Scrawled At Gallatin County, MT, Republican Headquarters. (96)

September 6, 2004: Huntington, WV, Republican Headquarters Egged. (97)

September 13, 2004: Swastika Drawn On Duluth, MN, Resident?s Lawn, Signs Also Defaced With Words ?Nazi? And ?Liar.? (98)

September 16, 2004: Community College Professor In Florida Punched Republican County Chairman In Face. (99)

September 22, 2004: West Elmira, NY, Resident Found Swastika Drawn On Bush Campaign Sign In His Yard. (100)

September 23, 2004: Office Ransacked During Break-In At Vilas County, WI, Republican Headquarters, Obscene Words And Graphic Pictures Sprayed On Campaign Signs. (101)

September 26, 2004: Windows Smashed And Signs Stolen At Oxford, MS, Bush-Cheney ?04 Headquarters. (102)

October 1, 2004: Laptops Of Executive And Field Director Stolen From Bush-Cheney ?04 Headquarters In Seattle, WA. (103)

October 1, 2004: Swastika Burned Into Front Yard Of Bush-Cheney ?04 Supporter In Madison, WI. (104)

October 2, 2004: Collinsville, OH, Resident Chains Down Bush-Cheney ?04 Signs After Several Signs Stolen And One Was Replaced With Kerry Sign. (105)

October 3, 2004: Burglary At Thousand Oaks, CA, Victory 2004 Headquarters Where Bush-Cheney ?04 Banner Was Stolen From Outside Premises. (106)

October 5, 2004: Gun Shots Fired Into Knoxville, TN, Bush-Cheney ?04 Office, Shattering Office?s Glass Front Doors. (107)

October 8, 2004: Two Men Were Caught On A Hidden Camera Tearing Down And Urinating On Bush-Cheney ?04 Sign In Akron, OH. (108)

October 9, 2004: Oxnard, CA, Supporter Placing Bush-Cheney ?04 In Yards Verbally Abused, Knocked Down And Had Signs Stolen. (109)

October 9, 2004: Bush-Cheney Signs Near Vail, CO, Cut In Half And Burned In ?Ransacking.? (110)

October 10, 2004: Office Windows Broken And Field Director?s Laptop Bag and Purse Stolen In Burglary At Canton, OH, Victory Office. (111)

October 11, 2004: Windows Broken, Petty Cash Stolen And Computers Tampered With In Burglary At Spokane, WA, Victory 2004 Headquarters. (112)

October 13, 2004: Walls And Windows Of York, PA, Victory 2004 Headquarters Vandalized With Pro-Kerry Spray-Paint And Signs Outside Destroyed. (113)

October 13, 2004: Window Smashed At Laconia, NH, Victory 2004 Headquarters. (114)

October 13, 2004: Kerry Supporter Caught Stealing Bush Sign In Cape Girardeau, MO, Pulled Knife On Sign?s Owner And Was Arrested. (115)

October 15, 2004: Someone Destroyed Large Plywood Bush-Cheney ?04 Sign, Then Tried To Smash Debris Though Glass Door Of Santa Fe, NM, Republican Party Headquarters. (116)

October 15, 2004: Someone Lined Window Sill With Bullet Casings At Littleton, NH, Republican Headquarters. (117)

October 16, 2004: Unknown Suspects Vandalized Large Bush-Cheney Campaign Sign In Hollister, CA, With Obscenities. (118)

October 17, 2004: Stickers Placed Over Windows Of Gettysburg, PA, Victory 2004 Headquarters. (119)

October 18, 2004: Eggs Thrown At Keene, NH, Victory 2004 Headquarters. (120)

October 18, 2004: 21 Protesters Arrested At Bush-Cheney ?04 Campaign Headquarters In Arlington, VA. (121)

October 20, 2004: Rocks Thrown Through Windows At Multnomah County, OR, Republican Party Headquarters. (122)

October 21, 2004: Bomb Threat Made Against Lake Havasu, AZ, Republican Party Headquarters. (123)

October 21, 2004: Windows Smashed At Multnomah County Republican Party Headquarters In Portland, OR. (124)

October 22, 2004: Break-In Discovered At Cincinnati, OH, Victory 2004 Headquarters. (125)

October 22, 2004: Break-In Discovered At Flagstaff, AZ, Victory 2004 Headquarters. Perpetrators gained entry by throwing a cinder block through a plate glass window. (126)

October 22, 2004: Chunk Of Concrete Tossed Through Glass Door Of Republican Headquarters In Santa Cruz, CA. (127)

October 23, 2004: Two Kerry Supporters Arrested After Stealing Pro-Bush Signs From Activist And Pushing Police Officer At Edwards Rally In St. Petersburg, FL. (128)


    
 Return To Index

Incidents Of Voter Intimidation & Suppression
(A) Charges Of Long Lines Orchestrated By Republicans To Suppress The Minority Vote
On June 2, 2005, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean charged that Republicans caused long lines at polling places on Election Day to suppress the minority vote. Dean stated:
?The Republicans are all about suppressing votes: two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district. ? You know, the idea that you have to wait on line for eight hours to cast your ballot in Florida there?s something the matter with that. ? Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them never made an honest living in their lives.? (7)

Dean was just the latest Democrat leader to make this charge. In January 2005, the Rev. Jesse Jackson charged that ?blatant discrimination in the distribution of voting machines ensured long lines in inner-city and working-class precincts that favored John Kerry, while the exurban districts that favored President Bush had no similar problems.? (8) The Democrat staff of the House Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), alleged in a January 2005 report that ?the misallocation of voting machines [in Ohio] led to unprecedented lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.? The Conyers report specifically cited Franklin County, Ohio, as an area in which Republicans intentionally misallocated voting machines in order to cause long lines and disenfranchise minority voters. (9)

However, Democrat election officials in Franklin County and the U.S. Department of Justice have refuted this allegation. During the recent U.S. House Administration Committee hearing held in Columbus, William Anthony, Chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party and County Board of Elections, flatly rejected the allegation that long lines were part of some effort to disenfranchise minorities and/or Democrat voters. Anthony further testified that long lines were not limited to minority and Democrat communities. Anthony stated under oath:

?Some have alleged that precincts in predominantly African American or Democratic precincts were deliberately targeted for a reduction in voting machines, thus creating the only lines in the county. I can assure you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, both as a leader in the black community and Chairman of the local Democratic Party and a labor leader and Chairman of the Board of Elections, that these accusations are simply not true.? (10)

Anthony stated that ?on Election Day I spent several hours driving around the county in the rain and observed long lines in every part of our county, in urban and suburban neighborhoods, black and white communities, Democrat and Republican precincts.? He referred to those who made claims about long lines and disenfranchisement as ?conspiracy theorists? and ?Internet bloggers.? (11)

Anthony noted that the entire process for allocating voting machines in the county was controlled by a Democratic supervisor. (12) He cited three reasons for the long lines in Franklin County on Election Day 2004: increased voter turnout, static resources and an exceptionally long ballot. (13) Finally, Anthony was ?personally offended? by these allegations. As he told The Columbus Dispatch, ?I am a black man. Why would I sit there and disenfranchise voters in my own community? ? I feel like they?re accusing me of suppressing the black vote. I?ve fought my whole life for people?s right to vote.? (14)

In July 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that its investigation of Franklin County found that the county ?assigned voting machines in a non-discriminatory manner.? As to charges of racial disparities in voting machine allocation, the Justice Department found that ?the allocation of voting machines actually favored black voters because more white voters were voting on each voting machine than black voters.? The Department reported that white precincts averaged 172 voters per machine, while black precincts averaged 159 voters per machine. Noting that elections in Franklin County ? and everywhere in Ohio ? are run by a six-member Board of Elections equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, the Department concluded that ?long lines were attributable not to the allocation of machines, but to the lack of sufficient machines to serve a dramatically enlarged electorate under any allocation.? (15) (Exhibit B)

(B) State Rep. John Pappageorge?s Statement That Republicans Needed To ?Suppress? The Detroit Vote
In the 2004 campaign, Democrats repeatedly cited a quote by 73-year-old Michigan state Rep. John Pappageorge as evidence of Republican plans to suppress the minority vote. In July 2004, Pappageorge was quoted by the Detroit Free Press as saying, ?If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we?re going to have a tough time in this election.? Detroit is 83 percent African American. (16)
When questioned about his statement, Pappageorge said the quote was misunderstood and then apologized to every Detroit legislator in the state House of Representatives. Pappageorge stated, ?In the context that we were talking about, I said we?ve got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message.? (17) Pappageorge immediately resigned from his position as a chairman of Michigan Veterans for Bush-Cheney. (18)

We have found no evidence of any plan by Pappageorge or others to suppress the minority vote in Detroit. In fact, minority voter participation in the presidential election in Michigan was up in 2004. (19) Voter turnout in Detroit increased in 2004 from 2000, and African American voters reportedly voted 95 percent for John Kerry. (20) Statements such as those by Pappageorge are highly inflammatory, even in the absence of any corresponding effort to suppress voter turnout. No political party, candidate or campaign should premise its success on a strategy of suppressing the participation of any class or group of voters, whatever that group of voters? racial or demographic characteristics. Rather, the political process works best when the parties, candidates and their campaigns focus on delivering a message that encourages their support and seeks to persuade voters to support their position.

(C) Charges That Republicans Spread Misinformation On Date of Election And Polling Places
In the weeks leading up to Election Day 2004, there were scattered reports of misinformation being spread about where and when the vote would take place. In Ohio, there were reports of fliers being distributed that said Republicans were to vote on Tuesday (November 2) and Democrats on Wednesday (November 3). Callers to nursing homes reportedly told senior citizens that the elderly were not allowed to vote and other callers directed people to the wrong polling places in African American neighborhoods or said voters who owed back child support or had unpaid parking tickets would be arrested if they came to the polls. (21)
No paid Republican operative has been linked to these misinformation efforts. A review of such incidents linked to paid Democrat operatives appears in the next section of this report. While we found no evidence that GOP operatives were responsible for these heinous acts, both the Republican and Democrat parties and law enforcement should be fully committed to investigating and prosecuting all reported efforts to misinform voters, or any effort to intentionally misdirect a voter so the voter will be denied the opportunity to participate in the election. What follows is a review of incidents in which it was charged that Republicans misinformed Democrat voters in 2004.

News reports indicate that in Franklin County, Ohio, a bogus flier was distributed telling Democrats to vote on Wednesday, November 3, the day after Election Day. The flier falsely claimed to be from the Franklin County Board of Elections. Republican operatives were never linked its distribution, and the Chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Party ?didn?t think it was a ploy by his Republican counterparts.? Election officials took action to counteract this false information. (22) Franklin County Elections Director Matthew Damschroder, a Republican, held a press conference to warn voters about the fraudulent flier and reemphasize that the election was indeed on November 2. The county Elections Board also mailed a post card to each of the more than 800,000 registered voters in the county informing them of their correct precinct and voting location at a cost of over $250,000 to the county. (23) These efforts by election officials to respond quickly to reports of voter misinformation are commendable and illustrate responsible action in response to this issue.

In Lake County, Ohio, some voters reportedly received letters on fake election board letterhead telling them that if they were registered by certain Democrat groups they would be unable to vote on Election Day. (24) The letter, headlined ?Urgent Advisory,? said that no one registered by NAACP, America Coming Together (ACT), or the John Kerry and Capri Cafaro campaigns would be able to vote because the groups had registered voters illegally. (25) ACT spokesman Jess Goode charged that the letter was ?proof positive that the Republicans are trying to steal the election in Ohio. They know they can?t win if all legitimate Ohio voters cast their ballots, so they?re kicking up a storm of voter intimidation and suppression.? (26) The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Lake County Sheriff Dan Dunlap was investigating the matter. We could find no evidence that any paid Republican operative was linked to these letters in Lake County.

In Milwaukee, a flier from the fictional group ?Milwaukee Black Voters League? was reportedly distributed in African American neighborhoods inaccurately telling voters they were ineligible if they voted previously in the year or if they had been convicted of any offense, no matter how minor. (27) The flier also warned, ?If you violate any of these laws, you can get ten years in prison and your children will get taken away from you.? (28) A spokesman for the Wisconsin Republican Party denounced the flier as ?appalling,? and a Bush-Cheney ?04 spokesman said the campaign would ?not tolerate any effort to suppress or intimidate voters.? (29) We were unable to find any reports of Republican operatives linked to the Milwaukee fliers.

At least some of the misleading information on voting locations came from the Kerry campaign itself. On Election Day, The Columbus Dispatch reported that hundreds of Columbus voters received directions to the wrong polling places after Kerry campaign canvassers ?mixed up the precincts in several Columbus neighborhoods.? While the Dispatch reported that the affected neighborhoods were ?predominantly pro-Kerry,? some residents were extremely unhappy after receiving directions to the wrong polling place. Dawn M. McCombs, 37, ?who complained to the Ohio Democratic Party about the error,? said ?This just really makes me mad ? It?s just stupid.? Columbus resident Yolanda Tolliver, who received one of the Kerry campaign fliers, was concerned about how the mistake might affect the area?s elderly and poor residents. ?We have people who have to work, and people who don?t work at all. They?re used to being discouraged. What happens is when they get frustrated, they won?t vote at all,? Tolliver said. Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said that while he didn?t think the distribution of the incorrect poll information was ?malicious,? it ?could disenfranchise a voter.? (30)

(D) McAuliffe Letter Alleging RNC-Funded Disenfranchisement
On October 13, DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe sent a letter to RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie accusing Republicans of ?systematic efforts to disenfranchise voters ? to impose unlawful ID requirements in New Mexico, to throw eligible voters off the rolls in Clark County Nevada and to deprive voters of their rights to vote a provisional ballot in Ohio, among other examples.? The letter argued that while Republicans claimed to combat vote fraud, ?it is actually the Republicans who are engaging in vote fraud in Nevada, Oregon and potentially other states.? McAuliffe cited the example of a voter registration organization paid by the RNC that was accused of ?ripping up Democratic voter registration forms? in Nevada. (31)
McAuliffe?s reference to ?ripping up Democrat voter registration forms? was a reference to the charges leveled by a former employee of the voter registration firm Sproul & Associates. These charges were, however, later found to be without merit. In October 2004, former Sproul & Associates employee Eric Russell claimed to have witnessed his supervisors tearing up Democrat registration forms. Russell, who admitted to being a disgruntled employee upset about not being paid for work he claimed to have done, said he witnessed his supervisor shred eight to ten Democratic registration forms from prospective voters. (32)

On the basis of these allegations, the Nevada Democratic Party sued the state of Nevada to reopen voter registration only in Clark County. A state court judge rejected the suit, saying that Democrats? thin evidence of registration forms actually being destroyed did not justify reopening the registration process. (33)

In late October, Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller announced that a state investigation of Eric Russell?s claims against Sproul found ?no evidence of an organized or concerted effort which would influence or impact the result of the elections in Clark County based on these allegations.? (34)

Allegations were also made that Sproul & Associates was registering Republicans exclusively and tearing up registration cards in Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. (35) While the Secretary of State and Attorney General launched investigations of Sproul?s activities in Oregon, there are no reports indicating any indictments or other legal actions taken against Sproul or its workers in these states. (36) The mere fact of these allegations and the other documented abuses of the voter registration process and incidents of voter registration fraud detailed in this report support reforming the process by which third-party groups participate in voter registration efforts and call for more accountability and oversight of third party voter registration efforts by election officials.

(E) Charges That Republicans Targeted Minority Precincts For Polling Place Challengers In Jefferson County, Kentucky
Prior to and since the 2003 elections, Democrats and their allies alleged that the Jefferson County, Kentucky, Republican Party?s placement of challengers in Democrat precincts was an attempt to suppress the African American vote by illegally targeting precincts in the county based on race. (37) Days before the 2003 gubernatorial election, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit accusing the county Republican Party of singling out minority Democrat precincts for intimidation through vote challengers. (38)
On November 4, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Thomas Wine denied the ACLU?s effort to ban GOP challengers from the polls and determined that their allegations of racial targeting were not supported by the evidence. Judge Wine found that Republicans placed challengers in county precincts without regard to any racial criteria. The judge ruled that the county Republican Party used a ?racially neutral? method of placing challengers, choosing those precincts ?with the highest percentage of registered Democratic voters vis-?-vis Republican.? Judge Wine noted that ?speculation alone? by the ACLU and Democrats about the challengers? placement was ?not sufficient? to merit a restraining order. According to Judge Wine?s order, state law entitled Republicans to have challengers at the polls on Election Day and barred such challengers from disrupting the election process by ?intimidating or harassing verbally? any voter, under penalty of being removed from the polling place. (39) (Exhibit C)

Despite the charge that Republicans were seeking to suppress the African American vote through their poll watcher program, the results of elections in 2003 and 2004 showed the opposite effect. In 2003, African American turnout actually increased in key county precincts targeted by Republicans for monitoring, and elections officials reported ?no problems? with the Republican poll watchers. (40) President Bush actually lost Jefferson County by a larger margin in 2004 than he did in 2000. John Kerry won the county by 5,592 votes in 2004, while Al Gore won it in 2000 by 4,849 votes. (41)

(F) Ohio Challenger Allegations
In the weeks leading up to the 2004 election, the issue of partisan challengers at polling places in Ohio became a lightning rod for charges voter intimidation and suppression. Ohio law allows observers who have been properly registered and credentialed by boards of election to be present at polling locations to observe the conduct of election. The observers are supervised by election officials and have a narrowly defined role. Ohio law allows each party, as well as candidates and issue campaigns, to appoint these observers, denominated as ?challengers? in the statutes. Both Republicans and Democrats applied to have thousands of challengers monitor the vote across Ohio on November 2. (42)
Republicans said they wanted challengers in polling places because of concerns about fraudulently registered voters in Ohio. (43) Democrats said they registered challengers only to watch the GOP observers, who they accused of trying to intimidate minority voters. The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the Republican challenger effort ?Old South politics, a type of intimidation.? (44)

Democrats ?filed lawsuits accusing the GOP of trying to suppress turnout and intimidate black voters? through their challenger program. One lawsuit, filed by civil rights activists Marian and Don Spencer, asked U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott of Cincinnati ?for an emergency restraining order barring partisan challengers from polling stations? in Ohio on the grounds that such challengers would ?intimidate black voters.? (45) Another lawsuit brought by Summit County Democrats asked U.S. District Judge John Adams of Akron to ?to declare unconstitutional a decades-old Ohio law that allows challengers to sit in polling places and challenge voters.? (46) Both Judge Dlott and Judge Adams held that the Ohio statute providing for challengers was unconstitutional and barred challengers from the polls on Election Day. (47) Neither Dlott or Adams ruled that the Republican challengers were intended to suppress minority voter participation. During the hearing before Judge Dlott Republicans were questioned extensively about the Republican challengers and the evidence established that the determination of which polling places Republican challengers observed was made without regard to any racial characteristic of the precincts in which challengers participated.

However, early on the morning of Election Day, a three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned the lower courts? rulings to allow challengers in Ohio polling places. The court ruled that the presence of Election Day challengers was allowed under state law, and that while registered voters should be able to cast ballots freely, there is also a ?strong public interest in permitting legitimate statutory processes to operate to preclude voting by those who are not entitled to vote.? (48) The Plaintiffs appealed the 6th Circuit?s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Associate Justice John Paul Stevens declined to hear the case, and thus refused to block the election challengers. Justice Stevens wrote that while the accusations leveled by the Plaintiffs were ?undoubtedly serious? time was too short for the court to render a proper decision. Stevens also expressed faith in local election officials in declining to hear the case by writing, ?I have faith that the elected officials and numerous election volunteers on the ground will carry out their responsibilities in a way that will enable qualified voters to cast their ballots.? (49)

Allegations that Republican challengers in the polls would ?intimidate and suppress the black vote? in Ohio in 2004, were spectacularly unfounded. African American turnout was up in predominantly black precincts in Ohio. In Cleveland, ?turnout was up nearly 22 percent [from 2000] and it went higher in some black wards.? In 2004, President Bush doubled his support from Ohio?s black voters from 2000. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ?Black voters may have given President Bush the edge in Ohio.? (50) The paper also reported that the ?most feared delays of the election ? from Republican challengers questioning the validity of voters at the polls ? never materialized.? (51) According to the New York Times, ?there were no reports that large numbers of voters were being challenged or denied a ballot [in Ohio].? (52)

On April 28, 2005, U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott issued an order denying a second motion for preliminary injunction against Republicans, holding that no voter?s due process rights are violated by Ohio?s polling place challenger rules. Judge Dlott ruled that there was no evidence to support giving the plaintiffs any relief on any of their claims. (53) (Exhibit D)

The plaintiffs in the case had claimed that the procedures established by the Republican Secretary of State would deprive properly registered voters of the opportunity to vote. They asserted that a voter whose qualifications to vote were challenged would be denied rights because they might fail to fully answer questions put to them by the precinct judges. According to Judge Dlott, the plaintiffs ?failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of claims and have not shown that any irreparable injury has resulted or will result from the [challenge] procedures.? Judge Dlott held that the plaintiffs ?produced no evidence at the hearing that any eligible voter was wrongfully denied a ballot under [the Ohio challenger rules] in the November 2004 election or that such a voter would be denied a ballot in any future election.? Judge Dlott reasoned that ?while the magnitude of the burden of having one?s properly registered right to vote revoked is great, there is no evidence that it has happened or will happen in May?s primary.? (54)

It has been noted that it is not difficult to convince the winner of an election that the result was proper and the election was fair and honest. The difficulty is to assure the losing candidate and party that the election was legitimate. Providing openness and transparency in the conduct of elections is an important means to assure that voters and the participants in the election (the candidates and political parties) ? especially those who sought a different outcome - have confidence that the election has been conducted in a fair and honest manner and that the result is a legitimate expression of the will of the voters. The presence of observers in polling places deters attempts at vote fraud and also provides assurance that there was no misconduct by election officials. All political parties and candidates should have appropriate means to have observers in polling places. State law should allow a role for observers and should provide them a meaningful opportunity to monitor the conduct of the election without interfering with the lawful conduct of the election. As the Ohio and Kentucky litigation illustrate, the mere presence of observers in polling places also invites legal challenge that such a presence is in some manner discriminatory. The outcome of the Ohio and Kentucky litigation and the actual participation in the respective elections by minority voters suggests that claims of observers lawfully monitoring the conduct of the election does not deter participation by minority or other voters.