The Seattle Times: Opinion: We must teach the insurgents to respect U.S. power: "Certainly this is not a suggestion to bring back the Mukhabharat or its methods of mass murder, torture and rape rooms in order to pacify Iraq. Rather, the point is that, despite much hand-wringing about 'evil, bloodthirsty American imperialists' in the world, these insurgents clearly understand something that many anti-American ideologues do not: Americans are not to be feared precisely because we are not evil, bloodthirsty imperialists. This lack of fear is a tremendous hindrance to our efforts, because in the cold reality of that region, to elicit no fear is to be powerless, and the powerless do not command respect.

To be successful in Iraq, we do not need more troops. Instead, we need to instill a healthy dose of fear - that is, respect - for our power. This certainly does not mean murder and torture, but it does mean overwhelming military responses to insurgents even in the face of serious collateral damages, as well as collective communal punishments such as reduced electricity and water rations for harboring insurgents. "
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But for fifty years, parents, teachers, police, churchmen have been afraid--yes, afraid--to confront evil, because the malefactor has learned that if he escalates the confrontation, then it will become the fault of the authority figure. Thus the heritage of the revolution of the sixties. I cannot image any teacher or principal that I knew as a boy imagining that it would be their fault if some bratty kid begin to scream and holler because obedience was demanded and enforced with violence if necessary. Furthermore, no parent I knew would have a complaint. But it was the National Guard at Kent State; it was the police at Berkeley; it was the U.S. in Viet Nam.

And so we sent the police to sensitivity school; the army to learn about meals on wheels; principals began to learn to respect "students' rights." Parents could not longer use language to "lay down the law," and make children obey, but learned to use language to manipulate into desired behavior. Kids were thus truly disrespected, as if it somehow were better to be treated as nuts rather than naughty.

So the will to confront and defeat evil was lost, or at least greatly enervated. Does America have the will to do what is necessary to bring order to Iraq? The jury is still out, I think. The dweebs like John Kerry and Jane Fonda and their anti-war cohorts destroyed the will of Americans to withstand the horror of Communism in Viet Nam and carry the blood of millions of people on their hands. They will add the blood of millions of Iraqis, if Americans are persuaded to leave, for everyone that helped America will have their throats cut in the mosques. We are not dealing with civilized people. They have taken heart by the fiascos in Viet Nam and Somalia and think that Americans will run if the cost in blood becomes too great. They are right about one part of America.

The latte crowd in America, hugging trees, self-righteous in their self-congratulating compassion, simpering over their cups, little fingers smartly curled, will never understand what it takes to defeat evil. They are not even sure there is such a thing as evil. They are so compromised in their own lives, living with evil and compromise, as to be unable to decide what evil is and what good is. It is all one to them, for that makes them feel confident that they are good people. Yes, I am speaking of morally corrupt people like Ted Kennedy, who could not find the moral force to try to save a young woman drowning in his car, but thought only of saving his own sorry political hide; of Bill Clinton who turned the Oval office into a porn palace and lied under oath rather than face up to his responsibility for the harrassment of Paula Jones; the list could go on and on, and is not limited to Democrats, for their are plenty of Republican wooses. This is the generation of self-esteem, drugs, rock 'n roll, and sexual anarchy. Leave no desire ungratified; brook no restraint upon your wishes. If confronted, throw such a fit as to intimidate and pass the blame to whoever is in your way: Mom, Dad, Teacher, Policeman, or National Guard. The only reality is the truth of my desires.The remarkable thing is that these reprobates feel morally and spiritually superior to the other America, the ones who know what evil is and are willing to confront and destroy it.

Yes, there is another America, the sons and daughters of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Normandy, and the Halls of Montezuma, who know you have to spank kids, expel students, fire teachers, and maybe shoot the bad guys who terrorize the 'hood. They know that evil has to be resisted. If we have enough of these Americans left, we will prevail. Otherwise, the world will regress to the 7th Century. Let Jane Fonda try her feminism on the Mullahs if that happens. Or see what happens when the simpering liberals try to raise their confrontation with the dark hoards of Islam. See how they respond to wimpishness.

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "It is my view that a political victory for terrorism in Iraq is a much greater danger to us than whether or not we succeed in capturing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Victory in Iraq will embolden radical Islamists as much as our failure to recognize the original danger of their declaration of war against us. "
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This is a great, sober, and non-partisan article from the former democratic senator from Nebraska. Clarke is wrong; Kerrey is right.

Excite - News: "'It's positive that Saddam and his bloody regime is gone, but when one weighs the costs, it's clearly the negative aspects that dominate,' Blix told daily Jyllands-Posten in an interview."
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Yep, Mr. Blix. And one of the great negatives is the loss of your job, eh? But you can make up for it, perhaps, by writing best-selling books lying about the President. Lying is good business.

MSNBC - From Kosovo To Fallujah: "One aim and effect of U.S. intervention in the Balkans--a kind of blurry border where Islam and Christianity meet--was to protect Muslims from persecution. America's harvest of gratitude has not been bountiful."
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Whatever you think of America, she has been true to her modern principles. I do not agree with some of those principles, but the U.S. has been true to herself. When Muslims were being "ethnically cleansed" in the Balkans, we intervened against the "Christians."

But Islam does not understand such principles. There Allah has no principles, because the will of Allah is capricious, enigmatic, without reason. The God of the Bible acts according to His nature and His goodness; that would limit Allah, as would personhood, so personood and goodness are jettisoned for benefit of theological consistency; the Trinity is jettisoned for the same "reason," for whatsoever does not tuck in nicely around all the edges of human reason must be eliminated. People who also are untidy and don't fit must also be eliminated, no matter how nice they might be.

Op-Ed Columnist: The Floo Floo Bird: " The architect Frank Lloyd Wright warned of the floo floo bird, 'the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward . . . because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been.'
That's us. With our eyes fixed on our rearview mirror, we obsessively review catastrophes past when we should be looking through our windshield at dangers ahead.
Today we are engaged in the wrong debate. The brouhaha about whether the new Bush administration treated the threat of Al Qaeda as 'important' versus 'urgent' is history almost as ancient as whether F.D.R. did enough to avert Pearl Harbor. "
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Long live the floo floo bird. The wrong debate, at the wrong time, by the wrong people, with the wrong conclusions. But modern libs only know how to look backward. They have no vision for the future except tax and tax and take power from the people for themselves.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion: "April 6, 2004 -- THE latest daily tracking polls by Scott Rasmussen show that President Bush has moved up six points in the past week to take a three-point lead over Sen. John Kerry. "
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Time for the dem's to dump Kerry and go to the well again. Surely there are some more old losers from which they can try resuscitation. Gore? Dukakis? Kennedy? Dean? Gephardt? John McCain? {yes, I know!}. Maybe Hillary? But she won't touch it. She looks to 2008.

Dennis Prager: Why no Christian suicide bombers? and other thoughts on Islamic terror: "Golly gee, Muslim terrorists tried to attack Madrid again. How can that be? Wasn't Muslim terror in Spain supposed to end once Spain appeased the terrorists by voting in the socialists?"
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Great article from my favorite Jew. Who says that all religions are the same? Only the spiritually bankrupt can think this way. There are many negatives in Islam, equal in devastating results if not emotional content, to child suicide bombers. There is nothing in Islam to Christ's words, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," because the church is the state and the state is the church in Islam. Neither is there anything similar to Christ's words, "Turn the other cheek," or "Forgive those who tresspass against you," or other such things. Neither is there an Easter in Islam. Muhommed is dead, dead, dead! Therefore, there is no revival in Islam, but only retrogation to the deadness of the past.