It is a sad day for mainstream journalists and liberals everywhere: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is facing the judgment of God for his crimes.
Zarqawi scurried away from Afghanistan when the U.S., the U.K., and Afghan militias destroyed his protectors’ government. Despite the Left’s fanatical insistence that Saddam Hussein had “nothing to do with al Qaeda,” Zarqawi set up shop in Baghdad two years before the war, as an honored guest of the regime. He was in bad company — Iraq had sheltered several other major international terrorists. Saddam also had extensive contacts (not to say alliances) with terrorists, directly funded Ansar al-Islam and used terror groups as proxies in his vicious struggles with the Kurds and Iranians.
Two years ago, Zarqawi announced that his band of merry thugs and murderers would be the Iraqi franchise of al Qaeda. They have killed hundreds of Americans and thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis. They are the avowed enemies of democracy and have promised to institute a Taliban-style theocracy in Iraq if they triumph.
Zarqawi and other terrorist leaders have depended upon the Left’s footsoldiers to broadcast news of their murders and bombings, with little context or explanation, and the Left has been happy to comply in order to harm the standing of President Bush and the war in Iraq. With yet another major terrorist undergoing the anger of Allah, it will be difficult to spin this as anything other than a victory, but I’m sure journalists will do their best. Within 24 hours, you will see stories that say, “Despite the Zarqawi’s death, the violence continued in Iraq….”
May the remaining terrorists repent of their crimes and turn themselves in to the civil authorities for temporal punishment. For those who do not, may God visit his wrath upon them for the innocent blood they have shed, and the discord they have sown.
Author: Eric Johnson
Corps of Engineers embraces the Gospel of Nice
On Thursday, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it was responsible for the flooding of New Orleans, because of bad design decisions in the city’s levees and floodwalls. As you will recall, the mainstream media had blamed the Bush Administration, but CNN and the BBC could not be reached, and so it is not known if they will issue formal apologies to the president.
I haven’t read the 6,000-page report issued by the Corps, but it sounds like they’re being a little hard on themselves. New Orleans has been slowly sinking into the earth for a long time, and it will continue to do so. Hurricanes will keep forming in the Gulf of Mexico, barring some drastic change in the Earth’s climate. Those two facts militate against any “solution” to the city’s long-term survival.
But it isn’t “nice” to ask whether it’s prudent to spend tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on rebuilding a doomed city. In the past, the Corps has occasionally asked whether a proposed project made economic sense. It shall repent from this violation of the Gospel of Nice:
Thursday’s report urged the Corps to shift its formulaic cost-benefit approach on how it decides what projects are worthwhile. The agency was urged to look at potential environmental, societal and cultural losses, “without reducing everything to one measure such as dollars.”
There are certainly cultural landmarks that are worth spending an “irrational” amount of money to save. If the Washington Monument were about to topple over, it would be worth spending millions to fix it, but surely that shouldn’t be the normative way to decide if a public-works project is worthwhile.
According to the Gospel of Nice, we are supposed to ignore such scruples. Once you start measuring flood losses by “societal and cultural losses,” get out the Federal checkbook and don’t put it away. Nevermind that by the time New Orleans is rebuilt and the flood defenses are strengthened, the Feds could have bought a new house on high ground for each of the displaced families. No, President Bush has already pledged “whatever it takes” to rebuild, and Congress is always happy to spend obscene amounts of money.
This Gospel abets so many evils in the world — and this is a comparatively minor evil of misusing public money. Members of the Church are certainly not immune to it. Niceness dictated that bishops should not punish priests for heterodoxy or homosexual molestations. It continues to damage the Body of Christ by encouraging Christians not to live lives of heroic virtue, but rather embrace a fuzzy, non-judgmental credo of never giving offense to anyone.
The moral obtuseness of the Associated Press
The word “tragedy” gets abused a lot these days, but here’s something truly tragic:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday. Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.
The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.
Given the frequency of suicide car bombings in Iraq, the rules of engagement are justified. That is no comfort to the family involved. And imagine if you were the gunner who killed the two women — knowing that you acted properly, and in ignorance of what the vehicle was really doing, is no comfort either.
But there’s a reason Kim Gamel of the AP filed an 800 word story on a simple incident: to blur the moral distinction between accidental killing and murder.
[The victim’s brother] said the killings, like those in Haditha, were examples of random killings faced by Iraqis every day.
The killings at Haditha, a city that has been plagued by insurgents, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., a decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials, has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.
Kim didn’t mention that the congressman, a living disgrace to the Marine Corps, declared that the Marines were guilty though none have been charged with anything yet, and he implicated the Marines’ chain of command, too. Very discreet. Then she reveals her main theme:
Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi told the BBC that the allegations have “created a feeling of great shock and sadness and I believe that if what is alleged is true — and I have no reason to believe it’s not — then I think something very drastic has to be done.”
“There must be a level of discipline imposed on the American troops and change of mentality which seems to think that Iraqi lives are expendable,” said Pachachi, a member of parliament.
Pachachi was being droll — for if anyone considers Iraqi lives expendable, it’s other Iraqis. And then comes…you can see this coming…Abu Ghraib!
If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which Bush said he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.
I wouldn’t put barking dogs and naked Iraqi pyramids on the same level as mass murder, but the AP is as mainstream as journalism gets, and mainstream journalism decided two years ago that Abu Ghraib is equivalent to Dachau.
It’s 5:00 a.m. in Baghdad as I type this. Thousands of Marines and soldiers have already woken for the day, and they are getting their gear ready to go out on patrol, man checkpoints, give fire support, render medical aid, and countless other tasks. Over the last three years, hundreds of thousands of men have risked their lives to save Iraqi civilians, and many more will in the future.
If Marines really committed murder in Haditha, people like Kim Gamel of the Associated Press will use their guilt to eradicate any good that servicemen did in Iraq. They’ve done a good job so far: most of the American public thinks that the war hasn’t been worth the cost. Who can blame them? The feckless Big Media never ceases to highlight bad events in Iraq, and no one can answer them effectively.
Cheapening American citizenship makes us safer?
It’s good to be Big Media. You don’t even have to conceal your biases anymore.
Senate Passes Immigration Bill Overhaul
By DAVID ESPO
WASHINGTON (AP) – Legislation to secure U.S. borders and offer millions of illegal immigrants access to the American dream cleared the Senate on Thursday, a rare election-year reach across party lines and a triumph for President Bush.
The issue at hand was, apparently, “access to the American dream.” What kind of horrid monster would be against access to the American dream?
You’d never know it from the article, but would-be immigrants can apply for access to the American dream at over 260 U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the world. Trouble is, they might refuse you for trifing reasons, such as no demonstrated ability to support yourself, or maybe you stabbed somebody in an argument and went to jail for six years. The other option, sneaking into the U.S., will then become more attractive.
Therefore, the Senate wants to grant amnesty — sorry, access to the American dream — to people whose first act on American soil was to commit a crime. In this debate, we have lost sight of that simple fact: It is already a crime to enter the United States and take up permanent residence without a visa. The Senate bill pretends to “secure the borders” by building some new fences and hiring some new Border Patrol agents. This is what they mean by a “compromise bill” — the Republicans get to pretend to their constituents that they are “serious” about defending our borders, and the Democrats get to spend more tax money, while knowing that the enforcement will never materialize.
Those in the country unlawfully for five years or more would be permitted to remain, continue working and eventually apply for citizenship. They would be required to pay at least $3,250 in fines and fees, settle any back taxes and learn English.
These sound great, but they won’t happen. What does “required to pay” mean, anyway? Who will track them down and make them pay? Immigration and Customs Enforcement? Federal courts? The IRS? These are illegal residents who have managed to dodge the law for a half-decade and more: you think they won’t dodge the tax man?
And the requirement to learn English is an utter joke. Again, how will that be enforced? You only have to take a literacy test if you apply for citizenship. Permanent residents don’t need to know English. (The guidelines for applying for permanent residency are here.) If learning English wasn’t a problem for five or more years, it probably won’t be a problem at all.
In other words, this is like a common-law marriage — you shack up long enough, you’re de facto married. You live in America long enough, you get to be a permanent resident, and maybe even a citizen with full civil rights, including the right to vote.
American citizenship used to mean something. The Founding Fathers risked their lives to establish it. Multitudes have died to keep it. And the United States Senate wants to give it away for $3,250 in fines and fees, plus back taxes. What gutless, loathsome, contemptible bastards.
Immigration won’t help the Church
Many Catholics take a cavalier attitude toward mass immigration, including commenters on this here blog. “Sure, immigration might be a problem,” they say, “but at least most of the immigrants are Catholic!”
How can we face our fellow citizens in the public square and argue for our views if we take that attitude? Translated, this says to our opponents, “Either agree with our arguments, or we’ll import zillions of foreigners and your guys will never get elected again because Latin Americans aren’t keen on abortion or gay marriage or all those other things you like so much.”
There are two problems with that approach. First, it treats American citizenship as if it means nothing — hardly a convincing tactic to anyone who is the least bit patriotic. Second, it isn’t true, because the current wave of immigrants will enshrine the Culture of Death for at least another generation.
I’ve met lots of Mexicans, and I’ve been to Central America a couple of times; Latin America as a whole is unquestionably more morally traditional than the U.S. But in the end, it won’t matter: Latinos will vote for Democrats, because the Democrats will promise them welfare, medical care, and subsidized education, and in the end, those goodies will trump moral traditionalism.
This is not an ethnic slur, it’s a sociological fact. Immigrants of all ethnicities overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. This is true of poor Salvadoran laborers and wealthy Indian entrepreneurs. There are a few anomalies — Vietnamese and Cuban immigrants trend Republican — but they do not disprove the rule.
That’s why California, which 40 years ago elected Ronald Reagan, now will have pro-abortion governors in the future. Arizona, which sent Barry Goldwater to the Senate, now drifts leftward; Colorado continues on the same path, and as more Mexicans are naturalized and begin voting, Texas will follow in a decade or so.
And the Democrats they’re electing in these states aren’t like the morally conservative Democrat politicians that you can find in Mississippi or Alabama. Even if they elect Republicans, they will be weak on moral issues. Look at Schwarzenegger, and you will see the future of American politics.
If you agree with mass immigration on Catholic grounds, and I disagree with it on Catholic grounds, we can agree to disagree. Just don’t think the country will be moved closer to Catholic teachings because of it.
Two postscripts:
1. Latin immigrants won’t necessarily remain Catholic, even if they were Catholic to begin with. In the Arlington Diocese, where I reside, there are about 300,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants, and only about 10% actively practice the Catholic faith. Evangelical and Pentecostal groups are much better at getting Hispanics involved.
2. Read about the American Church in the 19th century, and the widespread resentment against the Irish domination of the Catholic clergy and institutions. But as the Mass was in Latin, there was no controversy about the language of the liturgy. Catholic schools taught their classes in English. But if the current illegals are given amnesty, and 40 million additional Latino immigrants come to the U.S. because of family reunification laws (a low number, by some estimates), we will essentially have two parallel churches in the same country, one English, one Spanish, each with their own liturgies, traditions, institutions, clergy, religious, and laity. Many bishops will be forced to contend with two linguistic blocs within their dioceses, and will have to adjudicate an endless series of disputes between the two.
Will that be a source of unity, or division?