Category: News

1. I hate war.
2. War is rarely justified.
3. When justified, it must be undertaken.
4. When undertaken, it is a necessary evil.
5. Because it’s a necessary evil, only victory will suffice.
6. Victory is measured by permanently stopping the instigators.
7. Stopping the instigators must be viewed through the eyes of justice.
8. The eyes of justice do not seek vengeance.
9. Vengeance creates mistakes.
10. Mistakes transform victory into failure.
11. Failure is unacceptable.

Over the last week, I’ve been trying to sort out my thoughts on the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. It clearly hurts our self-imposed image as “the good guys”. While I don’t feel obliged to discuss the abuse directly, since the evidence speaks for itself, it’s abhorrent to our national values and ideals. No “moral” society would allow this to happen. But I’m realistic enough to understand that no society will proceed in any significant endeavor without mistakes. The true nature of a society is its response to its mistakes. In this we’re failing miserably.

Specifically, our president is failing. He’s reacting to this situation as if we should be content that the abuse was uncovered and the guilty will be prosecuted. That is part of the solution, but pretending like this isn’t a big issue is wrong.

If President Bush or others in his administration permitted the abuse, they are responsible and vile. If no one in President Bush’s administration knew of the abuse, they are responsible and incompetent. Neither truth is comforting. While President Bush will continue to push the war on terror forward, we have no evidence to believe that he can change his style of governing.

Despite this scandal, we should not capitulate to terrorists. Some will say we are no better than the terrorists we claim to fight. They are wrong. Terrorists will continue to use any reason available, no matter how twisted, to justify their agenda. However, until we prove that we are willing to admit and correct our mistakes, we make it more difficult for our allies to support us unconditionally. This is a pivotal moment in our fight for the world’s freedom. We must act honorably.

Based on this need, I do not believe that this administration is the right one to lead us into the future. I don’t base my opinion on the Republican vs. Democrat difference because it is beyond party differences. This is a leadership issue. President Bush and officials in his administration are demonstrating their fundamental lack of leadership skills in the world of 2004. Sometimes forceful, unilateral action is appropriate. When it’s not, that leaves diplomacy. This administration has shown that it lacks diplomacy, which is why the Republican Party must rid itself of the Bush-Cheney re-election ticket.

I’m intelligent enough to know that such a reversal will never happen. After the 13 nanoseconds it took me to come to that conclusion, I shifted to what might be a workable solution. As I’ve written before, the best possibility for America is a Kerry-McCain ticket for the presidency.

My opinion hasn’t changed, I still think this is a brilliant solution. Yet, I know my ideas do not usually gel with everyone else. Much to my surprise, though, Andrew Sullivan reiterated this same idea in an article for The National Review. I’m not sure I agree with the loss of confidence in the Kerry candidacy that Mr. Sullivan claims, but he’s following the campaign closer than I am, so I’m willing to give him some slack on this for now. Rather than try to write my own version of why this is a great idea, I’ll offer a few highlights from the article. He clarifies everything I’ve been thinking, but haven’t put into words. Rather than waste time re-writing what’s already written, I’ll let the idea stand in place of my originality.

Mr. Sullivan’s main argument:

Here’s why. There is no one better suited in the country to tackle a difficult war where the United States is credibly accused of abusing prisoners than John McCain. He was, after all, a victim of the worst kind of prisoner torture imaginable in the Hanoi Hilton. His military credentials are impeccable but so are his moral scruples and backbone; that’s a rare combination. As a vice-presidential candidate, he would allow Kerry to criticize the conduct of the war and occupation, but also to pursue them credibly. He would give Kerry credibility on national defense, removing the taint of an “antiwar” candidacy headed by a man who helped pioneer the antiwar forces during Vietnam. He would ensure that a Kerry victory would not be interpreted by America’s allies or enemies as a decision to cut and run from Iraq.

In office, McCain could be given real authority as a war-manager, providing a counterweight to Kerry’s penchant for U.N.-style non-solutions. There’s a precedent for such a powerful vice-president who could not credibly be believed to have designs on the Oval Office himself: Dick Cheney. Why no credible ambitions for the presidency himself? If McCain agreed to run with Kerry, he would also have to agree to support Kerry for possible reelection. There’s no way that McCain could credibly run for president in eight years’ time–as a Democrat or as a Republican. So he could become for Kerry what Cheney has been for Bush: a confidant, a manager, a strategic mind, a guide through the thicket of war-management. But he could also be more for Kerry: He could be a unifying force in the country in the dark days ahead.

Whatever your opinion, read the article in its entirety. Mr. Sullivan offers an interesting perspective on the “national government” idea, commonly found in times of crisis in parliamentary democracies. It’s an important, unique approach to our election at this critical moment and worth your consideration.

Scanning the internet this afternoon, I came across this article from FinanceAsia.com. It covers typical business news, which in this case means the following:

After 14 years inside Misys in Europe, Rudi Pecker has been elevated to the financial technology company’s Singapore office, to become head of Asia Pacific sales.

That’s straight journalism… just the facts. That wouldn’t be worth mentioning if they hadn’t sold the article with the best headline possible. Guess what they wrote…

Misys gives Pecker head job

I wonder if life will imitate art for that gentleman…

Even though The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression is associated with his university, I love the concept of this organization. From its website:

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression is a unique organization, devoted solely to the defense of free expression in all its forms. While its charge is sharply focused, the Center’s mission is broad. It is as concerned with the musician as with the mass media, with the painter as with the publisher, and as much with the sculptor as the editor.

Every year, the Center awards the Jefferson Muzzles, which it describes as follows:

Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle.

Announced today, the 2004 winners are:

Judge Miriam Goldman Gedarbaum

The U.S. Department of Defense

The United States Secret Service

The Albemarle County (VA) School Board

Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey

CBS Television

The University of New Orleans Administration

The Administration of Dearborn High School (Michigan)

The South Carolina House of Representatives

The Parks and Recreation Division of Broward County (Florida)

Jeff Webster of Soldotna, Alaska, and the Unnamed Arsonist of Harrisonburg, Virginia

The Arizona State License Commission

The Pilot Point (Texas) Police Department

I don’t make a distinction about which speech or ideas should be free. Say whatever is on your mind. Believe what you want. Synthesize what others have to say. Enjoy the freedom to say as much or as little as you wish. Make a statement, then immediately realize that you believe something else.

With censorship rampant in America, it’s important to remember that progress only comes about through the free expression of ideas. That shouldn’t be stopped by anyone. Anyone who regularly reads RollingDoughnut.com will understand that I admire this 1962 statement from the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black:

“My view is, without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, that freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have or the views they express or the words they speak or write.”

Taking a little twist on an old bumper sticker cliche, I contribute propose this: Know censorship, Know oppression. No censorship, no oppression.

The debate over what the U.S. and coalition forces should do about Iraq has turned into a discussion of Iraq as the Vietnam. I don’t think this idea holds up, as Tony Blair correctly explains in this article. The entire article is worth reading, but here’s the highlight:

Of course they use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics’ victory.

They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.

Building further upon this, Andrew Sullivan posted his statement detailing how John Kerry should handle the current situation in Iraq. He opens his article with the following:

There’s no question that the violence in Iraq this past week has rattled Washington – and indeed Americans. A war that seems to pit U.S. marines against some of the people they are supposed to be liberating is not a narrative most Americans want to follow. Senator Ted Kennedy used the V-word: “We’re facing a quagmire in Iraq, just as we faced a quagmire in Vietnam.” Even the conservative TV host, Bill O’Reilly, opined of the silent majority of Shiites: “If these people won’t help us, we need to get out in an orderly matter.”

Whether or not someone supported the war, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re not leaving without success. In the land of fairies and always-answered prayers, we could withdraw and Iraq would still become a stable democacry. Unfortunately, this is the mess we’re in. It’s not going away, so we have to deal with, whether or not Bush should’ve gotten us into it.

Ultimately, the presidential debate becomes “Who should lead us in the continued war on terrorism?”

For me (besides the obvious conclusion that I’ll vote for John Kerry, short of him being caught with a dead body), this election is about finding a presidential leader. Bush has alienated the world with his bullying tough talk. Kerry hasn’t built any credibility in his ability to take a stance. This is bad for our future.

But the consolation is that, contrary to what people think, Kerry is not going to walk away from what Bush started. He can’t. As much as he may take every stance possible, he’s smart enough to understand the global implications of the current situation.

That leads to the question of what John Kerry would do. As Mr. Sullivan states:

This leaves, however, a fascinating dilemma for John Kerry. So far, his campaign has been dedicated to criticizing how the president got us into the Iraq war. Last Wednesday in a radio interview, he described the Iraq war as “one of the greatest failures of diplomacy and failures of judgment that I have seen in all the time that I’ve been in public life.” But what would he do if he were elected? So far, he has dismissed the notion that he would cut and run. And you can see why: If he were to pull a Zapatero, he would be destroyed in the election. But he has yet to articulate a compelling alternative to Bush’s call for resolve. Again, when asked last week what his own current policy would be, he responded: “Right now, what I would do differently is, I mean, look, I’m not the president, and I didn’t create this mess so I don’t want to acknowledge a mistake that I haven’t made.” That’s a non-answer. But a non-answer tells you a lot about what a real answer might be.

That kind of non-answer is understandable from a politician. But it’s obvious that the United States is in need of a leader, not another president governing by polls or ideology (Clinton and Bush, respectively). Mr. Sullivan, who is not running for president, imagined the perfect statement to fit the message John Kerry is trying to sell. He writes:

Thank you, Mr president, for your leadership in difficult times. You took some tough decisions in good faith. I disagree with you but I will not let our troops down and I will not abandon Iraq. But you, Mr president, are now part of the problem. You are too polarizing a figure to bring real peace to Iraq, and have bungled the post-liberation too badly. Your failure to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has undermined your credibility as a war-leader. You are too unpopular to allow European governments and the U.N. to cooperate fully in the war. One of the advantages of a democracy is that we can pursue the same goals over time with different leaders and different strategies. I intend to win the war in Iraq because we cannot afford to lose it. But I also intend to bring our allies more centrally into the task, to increase troop levels in the country, to appoint Richard Holbrooke to oversee our cooperation with the incoming Iraqi government, and ask former president Bill Clinton to re-open peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. I will be tough on terror and tough on the causes of terror. I can complete what you started. In fact, I alone can complete what you started.

The ideas in that one paragraph say everything necessary. Unfortunately, I fear that we’d have to live in the land of fairies and always-answered prayers for those words to come from John Kerry.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice spoke to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . She had some interesting insights, which I’ll recap here, with my opinion added. From her opening remarks:

The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America’s response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.

I’ve harped on it before, but freedom isn’t free. There are intangible costs associated with it, but I don’t think we wish to give up on democracy to possibly prevent more terrorism. Living in fear doesn’t work.

To her credit, Dr. Rice implied this idea. I’m not convinced that the president and administration is committed to this ideal, but I have cause for hope. However, I disagree with this next comment, concerning President Bush’s leadership since September 11th, 2001:

[H]e has done this in a way that is consistent with protecting America’s cherished civil liberties and with preserving our character as a free and open society.

I’ve written voluminously about that concept, with regard to subjects not related to September 11th, 2001. My views on this are simple: argue what you will about President Bush’s leadership in “protecting America’s cherished civil liberties and with preserving our character as a free and open society”, his actions are, at best, contradictory. At worst, this statement is false. I’m not going to comment further.

Moving on to Dr. Rice’s testimony, many of her answers portray the fact that the issues facing the president and his administration don’t lend themselves to an obvious prioritization. He must make choices, as educated as possible. It’s not always successful, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad president. Consider this:

One doesn’t have the luxury of dealing only with one issue if you are the United States of America. There are many urgent and important issues.

But we all had a strong sense that this was a very crucial issue. The question was, what do you then do about it?

And the decision that we made was to, first of all, have no drop- off in what the Clinton administration was doing, because clearly they had done a lot of work to deal with this very important priority.

And so we kept the counterterrorism team on board. We knew that George Tenet was there. We had the comfort of knowing that Louis Freeh was there.

Assuming this testimony is the truth, this begins to enlighten us about the thought process involved before September 11th. Intelligence gathering is confusing. The answers aren’t always obvious. The key is being smart with the information available at the time. The primary valuable hindsight task is to fix the intelligence/structural weaknesses that did not prevent the attacks. Assigning blame should happen, but only if an egregious failure to act makes assigning blame an obvious option.

As Dr. Rice reveals in her response to Governor James R. Thompson’s questioning about the attack on the U.S.S. Cole:

Governor Thompson: The Cole – why didn’t the Bush administration respond to the Cole?

Dr. Rice: I think Secretary Rumsfeld has perhaps said it best.

We really thought that the Cole incident was passed, that you didn’t want to respond tit-for-tat. As I’ve said, there is strategic response and tactical response.

And just responding to another attack in an insufficient way we thought would actually probably embolden the terrorists. They had been emboldened by everything else that had been done to them. And that the best course was to look ahead to a more aggressive strategy against them.

I still believe to this day that the Al Qaida were prepared for a response to the Cole and that, as some of the intelligence suggested, bin Laden was intending to show that he yet survived another one, and that it might have been counterproductive.

That makes sense to me. For an example, see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Every attack gets an immediate revenge response. Where is the solution in there? I know that’s over-simplifying the issue, but the point is still relevant. The thought process within the Clinton and Bush administrations was logical and potentially correct.

However, despite my positive response to Dr. Rice’s testimony, my fundamental issue with the Bush administration is displayed by Bob Kerrey’s comments during the questioning:

Let me say, I think you would have come in there if you said, We screwed up. We made a lot of mistakes. You obviously don’t want to use the M-word in here. And I would say fine, it’s game, set, match. I understand that.

When faced with questioning about what happened, President Bush and the administration circled the wagons. They didn’t want any debate. The president has a war on terrorism to fight, which isn’t finished. But that’s a justification for beginning the debate, not ending it. He’s committed America to a long fight against radical, violent thinking. This is worthy, but not to be undertaken in secret.

Everyone knows that mistakes were made leading up to September 11th. I believe (hope?) the majority of people are smart enough to know that no one person or administration can be blamed for this. We didn’t know. But we could’ve. Until President Bush is prepared to act presidential and speaks honestly with the American people, his credibility will suffer. In an election year, that’s not wise.

Perhaps Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should speak with President Bush. At a speech, Justice Scalia spoke of the Constitution:

“The Constitution of the United States is extraordinary and amazing. People just don’t revere it like they used to,” Scalia told a full auditorium of high school students, officials, religious leaders.

Interesting words by an extreme conservative. I agree with his statement, but I suspect we don’t agree on how to apply our reverance.

What a concept… The National Cable Television Association announced that it will “provide free equipment to allow subscribers to block unwanted channels”. Here are some details:

The offer is directed to about half the nation’s 70.5 million cable subscribers who don’t have cable boxes that can be programmed to block certain channels or programs. The companies agreeing to the plan include the 10 largest in the country and reach 85 percent of all cable subscribers.

Self-regulation can work. As I’ve suggested, if someone doesn’t like what their children are watching, turn it off. I should’ve gone the extra step and instructed people to block “offending” channels through their cable box. If someone has digital cable, their cable box has the capability to block channels. It’s not hard and everyone’s rights are protected.

Along those lines, consider this:

“No one wants policy-makers to have to choose between protecting children or preserving the First Amendment,” [NCTA president Robert] Sachs told the Cable Television Public Affairs Association. “So if we, as an industry, actively promote the choices and controls available to consumers, there will be no need for anyone to do so.”

Addressing such an idea, consider this:

The cable industry also launched a new Web site, www.controlyourtv.org, which includes instructions on how parents can use the V-chip in televisions built in 2000 and later to block both broadcast and cable programs. The V-chip works with a voluntary industry ratings system.

“This is what we think is the best method of addressing all those concerns,” [Cable association spokesman Rob] Stoddard said. “It leaves the power in the hands of the cable subscriber.”

Naturally, even if the cable industry didn’t do this, there is little that Congress can do. The cable industry is a private broadcast network, so the “protecting the public airwaves” nonsense spewed by Congress is irrelevant. Any attempt to regulate it is a clear violation of the First Amendment, not supported by court rulings.

Self-regulation instead of illegal government intervention is an amazing concept.

In an update to yesterday’s news that Rhea County, Tennessee wanted to ban homosexuals, the county commissioners met again today to rescind their motion. The new motion passed 8-0. The money quote comes from the County Attorney, Gary Fritts:

“They wanted to send a message to our (state) representative and senator that Rhea County supports the ban on same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is what it was all about,” Fritts said. “There has just been so much misunderstanding about this. It was to stop people from coming here and getting married and living in Rhea County.”

I’m assuming that the county commissioners aren’t stupid, so I can only believe that they knew that approving a motion seeking a way to prosecute homosexuals for “crimes against nature” isn’t the same as passing a motion supporting a ban on same-sex marriage. I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. Fritts, but there has been no misunderstanding.