ELSEWHERE

There is an excellent response from an Iraqi blogger here about the stupid accusation that the U.S. intervention in Iraq was just a "neocon" plot. A small excerpt: "He, as well as many "anti-war" people, do not understand how the war to topple Saddam and establish democracy in Iraq can be a part of the war on terror. I do believe, however, that the American official are not that stupid to deal so lightly with such a critical issue. Iraq is not an adventure. Toppling Saddam was never the main reason for the war and should never be thought of as this... This is not an adventure and this is not a neo-conservative dream. This is OUR dream". (Via Peg Kaplan).

Further to my post yesterday in which I derided the notion that "neocons" generally or "Straussians" in particular are running American foreign policy, it may be worth noting that Strauss himself did not believe in an imperial or a do-gooding foreign policy. Strauss's thought on the matter is summarized here as: "Thus according to Strauss, the purpose of foreign policy is or ought to be survival and independence, or self-preservation, and nothing else". As a classicist, Strauss could hardly have taught anything else, given the disaster that Alcibiades and the Syracusan expeditions brought upon the Athenians. So any influence from Strauss is in fact towards isolationism, rather than foreign involvements.

Good to see that even USA Today is calling Kerry a flip-flopper and describing his solution to the Iraq problems as "Murky"

Jeff Jacoby has a disturbing article on the rise of mail-in voting and the accompanying rise in electoral fraud.

Wow! Britain is ending its postal monopoly. One hopes it sets an example to others. "Royal Mail should face competition in the delivery of all post from 1 January 2006, regulator Postcomm has said."

Amazing: The Saudis have no respect for their own scriptures. They circulate an English-language version of the Koran that adds in heaps of extra anti-Western stuff that was not in the original.

Another ungodly priest: "A priest accused of bulldozing more than 2000 Tutsi villagers to death as they sought sanctuary in his church during Rwanda's 1994 genocide has gone on trial before a United Nations court charged with crimes against humanity. Father Athanase Seromba, 41, is the first Catholic priest to face charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda"

GWB needs to intervene to fix this: "According to many of the 27 million veterans who honorably served the nation during World War II and the Korean, Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, being ordered to storm a beachhead or take the next hill or advance through minefields were not their most difficult assignments. Long after the memories of battle have faded, too many of the nation's veterans have found themselves in a no-win war to obtain benefits they were promised when they put on their country's uniform".

Why work in a socialist country? "In a country plagued by skyrocketing sick-leave costs, a new survey presented Friday found that 40% of Sweden's population believes it is acceptable to skip work because they feel tired or have trouble getting along with colleagues. The survey, by the National Social Insurance Board, also found that 65% of the 1,002 people interviewed think a stressful work situation is also a valid reason for calling in sick and collecting pay under Sweden's liberal social programs".

Should we detain terrorists without trial? "A forthright policy of preventive detention is an idea whose time has come. This is the most important implication of the historic rulings issued by the Supreme Court in the enemy combatant cases of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v. Bush, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla. In Hamdi, five justices agreed that the president has the authority to detain terrorists, even when they are not charged under the criminal law and are not held as either POWs or war criminals under international law."

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here

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Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause

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