Download Full Content – Printable Pickings
Mark Steyn, in the Western Standard,
About a decade ago, Bill Clinton developed a favourite statistic–that every day in America 12 children died from gun violence. When one delved a little deeper into this, it turned out that 11.569 persons under the age of 20 died each year from gun violence, and five-sixths of those 11.569 alleged kindergartners turned out to be aged between 15 and 19. Many of them had the misfortune to become involved in gangs, convenience-store holdups, drive-by shootings, and drug deals, which, alas, don’t always go as smoothly as one had planned. If more crack deals passed off peacefully, that “child” death rate could be reduced by three-quarters.
But, ever since President Clinton’s sly insinuation of daily grade-school massacres, I’ve become wary of political invocations of “the children.” In Iraq, for example, everyone in U.S. uniform is a “child.” “The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute,” as Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wrote about Cindy Sheehan. Miss Dowd had rather less to say about the moral authority of Linda Ryan, whose son, Marine Cpl. Marc Ryan, was killed by “insurgents” in Ramadi. But that’s because Mrs. Ryan honours her dead child as a thinking adult who “made a decision to join the Armed Forces and defend our country.”
The left is reluctant to accept that. Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as “children.” The infantilization of the military promoted by the media is deeply insulting but it suits the anti-war crowd’s purposes. It enables them to drone ceaselessly that “of course” they “support our troops,” because they want to stop these poor confused moppets from being exploited by the Bush war machine.
Which brings me to Canada’s most famous warrior: Omar Ahmed Khadr, captured five years ago this month fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, and today, since the repatriation of various Brits and Australia’s David Hicks, the most celebrated of Her Majesty’s subjects to be enjoying George W. Bush’s hospitality at Guantanamo. Mr. Khadr is alleged to have killed Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer of America’s Delta Force in the battle at Khost–or rather in the aftermath, when he was lying on the ground playing dead and hurled a grenade. And perhaps I should say not “Mr.” Khadr but young Master Khadr, for he was 15 at the time. …
Christopher Hitchens does yeoman service destroying some of the anti-war left’s canards about Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over the past few months, I have been debating Roman Catholics who differ from their Eastern Orthodox brethren on the nature of the Trinity, Protestants who are willing to quarrel bitterly with one another about election and predestination, with Jews who cannot concur about a covenant with God, and with Muslims who harbor bitter disagreements over the discrepant interpretations of the Quran. Arcane as these disputes may seem, and much as I relish seeing the faithful fight among themselves, the believers are models of lucidity when compared to the hair-splitting secularists who cannot accept that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is a branch of al-Qaida itself.
Objections to this self-evident fact take one of two forms. It is argued, first, that there was no such organization before the coalition intervention in Iraq. It is argued, second, that the character of the gang itself is somewhat autonomous from, and even independent of, the original group proclaimed by Osama Bin Laden. These objections sometimes, but not always, amount to the suggestion that the “real” fight against al-Qaida is, or should be, not in Iraq but in Afghanistan. (I say “not always,” because many of those who argue the difference are openly hostile to the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as to the presence of coalition soldiers in Iraq.)
The facts as we have them are not at all friendly to this view of the situation, whether it be the “hard” view that al-Qaida terrorism is a “resistance” to Western imperialism or the “soft” view that we have only created the monster in Iraq by intervening there. …
Great posts from the Captain. First, he notes a German paper getting the news straight from Iraq. Then he posts on the humor in the “ethics bill.” Finally, he wonders if Obama’s ready for prime time.
1. Der Spiegel has reflected and led overwhelming German opposition to the war in Iraq practically from the moment of the invasion in 2003. They have often featured George Bush on their cover in unflattering pictures and with negative headlines such as “Power and Lies”, an issue last year in which they declared Iraq lost. However, they finally sent their own reporter for an in-depth tour of Iraq, and the magazine realizes that the world media has missed the story
2. How bad is the ethics bill that the Democrats just pushed through Congress? Even lobbyists have started to point out its loopholes to the Washington Post. Under the new rules, Representatives and Senators will no longer be able to accept free meals — unless the lobbyist also provides money for their re-election at the meal. No, I’m not kidding:
3. The primary campaign has turned into a very long dance for Barack Obama, who seems determined to prove at every opportunity that he has two left feet. In New Hampshire, Obama told a crowd that the US military effort consists mainly of “air raiding villages and killing civilians” — which his tone-deaf campaign confirmed moments later to reporters …
Michael Barone with the first of two pieces on the Dems and free trade.
One issue that’s going to come up this fall that you haven’t heard much about is trade. Or at least I hope it’s going to come up. The Bush administration has submitted four free-trade agreements for approval by Congress — with Peru, Colombia, Panama and South Korea. At the moment, their chances don’t look very good. Democrats have taken to opposing FTAs almost unanimously. In July 2006, the House voted by only a 217-215 margin for the CAFTA, the FTA with four Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. House Democrats voted 188-15 against, House Republicans 202-27 for. In the Senate the vote was 54-45, with Democrats voting 33-10 against and Republicans 43-12 for. Those numbers suggest that the four pending FTAs are in severe trouble unless some votes are switched. …
David Broder is the next grown-up to write about trade.
… the Democratic aspirants for president vied last week in their debate in Chicago to see who could be most irresponsible on trade issues.
The setting encouraged pandering; 17,000 union members filled seats at Soldier Field, mobilized by the AFL-CIO, which was dangling the prospect of labor endorsements and campaign funds in the primary battles just ahead.
The bar for applause lines was set high early in the proceedings when Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the longest of long shots, said that “it’s time to get out of NAFTA and the WTO,” referring to the free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada and the World Trade Organization.
That led moderator Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, apparently auditioning for the part of Lou Dobbs, to ask other candidates, “Scrap NAFTA or fix it?” as if those were the only alternatives. …
Thomas Sowell writes on the tragedies in Minnesota and Utah.
Two recent tragedies — in Minnesota and in Utah — have held the nation’s attention. The implications of these tragedies also deserve attention. Those politicians who are always itching to raise tax rates have seized upon the neglected infrastructure of the country as another reason to do what they are always trying to do. Those who live by talking points now have a great one: “How can we fight an expensive war and repair our neglected infrastructure without raising taxes?”
Plausible as this might sound, tax rates are not tax revenues. The two things have moved in opposite directions too many times, over too many years, for us to take these clever talking points at face value. This administration is not the first one in which a reduction in tax rates has been followed by an increase in tax revenues. The same thing happened during the Reagan administration, the Kennedy administration and the Coolidge administration. Tax rates and tax revenues have moved in opposite directions many times, not only at the federal level, but also at state and local levels, as well as in foreign countries. How many times does it have to happen before people stop equating tax rates with tax revenues? Do the tax-and-spend politicians and their media supporters not know any better — or are they counting on the rest of us not knowing any better?
Even if we were to assume that higher tax rates will automatically result in significantly higher tax revenues, the case for throwing more money at infrastructure would still be weak. Some of the money already appropriated for maintaining and repairing infrastructure is being diverted into other pet projects of politicians. Money supposedly set aside for repairing potholes and maintaining bridges is diverted to the building of bicycle paths or subsidizing ferries or buses. These other things have more of a political pay-off. …
John Leo with a good column on Duke.
If anyone ever starts a museum of horrible explanations, the one-liner by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas about his magazine’s dubious reporting on the Duke non-rape case — “The narrative was right but the facts were wrong” — is destined to become a popular exhibit, right up there with “we had to destroy the village to save it.”
What Mr. Thomas seems to mean is that the newsroom view of the lacrosse players as privileged, sexist, and arrogant white male jocks was the correct angle on the story. It wasn’t. …
Division of Labour tells us how Katrina aid is used to purchase luxury condos 200 miles from the coast. ITAGCOW? (Is this a great country or what?)
With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama’s football stadium. …