Got it right abroad -- get it right at home....
By Mark Alexander · Friday, June 13, 2003
Are we winning the peace and did we tell the truth in the process? Those seem to be the questions animating the fevered imaginations of critics of President George W. Bush's doctrines of preemption and moral clarity in the war with Jihadistan.
Responding to the natterers and naysayers, President Bush replied, "The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful and the world is now more peaceful after our decision; the strong desire to make sure free nations are more secure -- our free nations are now more secure; and the strong desire to spread freedom. ...And history will show ... time will prove that the United States made the absolute right decision in freeing the people of Iraq from the clutches of Saddam Hussein."
On that note, evidence against the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein is building. A mass grave holding 200 Kurdish children, apparently buried alive, some clutching dolls, was unearthed this week. There seems to have been no limit to Saddam's penchant for cruelty and terror -- and violence against women and children appears to have been among his most oft-used tactics.
The delay in discovering what Saddam did with his weapons of mass destruction stores, particularly his weaponized anthrax and nuclear capabilities, has fueled conspiracy theorists to suggest that this concern was a fabricated ploy to overtake Iraq and control its oil. The Federalist is satisfied that eventually even the strongest critics of the allied campaign against Iraq in particular, and Jihadistan in general, will be satisfied that Saddam did have biological and nuclear weapons capability -- but our fervent hope is that such satisfaction will not be the result of those weapons being used in another more catastrophic attack on the U.S. Iran and Syria remain the primary repositories for those weapons.
Of course, significant evidence of Saddam's WMD has been found, and, additionally, terrorists have been discovered in Iraq since the cessation of major hostilities. On Thursday, coalition forces mounted an attack on a terrorist training camp near Al Qaim, on the main route from Iraq to Syria -- suspected as the road for transit of regime figures and possibly of those sought weapons, and hammered Baath Party loyalists in the region. The dead Jihadis are "foreigners" rather than Iraqis, and likely al-Qa'ida members supporting continuing operations against coalition liberators in Iraq.
There was some good news from Baghdad this week. Almost all of the priceless historic treasures reported stolen from the Baghdad Museum by looters have been found in a secret vault where museum officials had concealed them. Some 3,000 items, mostly insignificant, are still missing -- far fewer than the 170,000 initially reported stolen.
And speaking of things still missing, rumors that Saddam is alive were a hot topic with the talkingheads this week. In related news, former information minister Muhammed Saeed "Baghdad Bob" Al-Sahaf passed a polygraph test, Osama bin Laden's Jihadis have purchased a fleet of flying carpets, Elvis had a heart attack after hearing about Lisa Marie and Michael, and Waldo was found in the trunk of Dick Gephardt's limousine.
In other news...
Israel attempted to kill Abdel Aziz Rantisi, founder of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, on Tuesday in response to deadly Hamas attacks over the weekend. (Hamas Jihadi homicide bombers, 93 of them, have murdered more than 366 civilians in less than three years.) Abdel was injured and vowed from his hospital bed "not to leave one Jew in Palestine." (Now, an original thought!) Of course, all the State Department's Foggy Bottoms complained that Israel's response threatened to start a new "cycle of violence" and derail Mr. Bush's peace plan. (When did the violence cease?)
Indeed, Wednesday, a Hamas suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus during the afternoon rush hour in Jerusalem, killing 16 and wounding more than 100.
President Bush and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the former saying he was "deeply troubled" by Israel's targeting of Hamas. Mr. Bush's rebuke was a diplomatic maneuver to encourage Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to remain at the "roadmap to peace" party. (We are going to go out on a limb here and declare, "It ain't gonna happen!") Palestinians and their Hamas terrorists don't want peace -- they want all Israelis DEAD.
For the record, if any Middle East nation really cared about the plight of the Palestinians, they would annex them, or take them in, but nobody -- and we mean NOBODY -- wants them. They are just fodder to justify Islamist terrorism worldwide. As for the condition of those Palestinian camps, that is self-imposed -- the result of Arafat's unwillingness to comport with Israeli integration proposals.
Memo to Leftmedia outlets: Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a "political party." Learn the difference and quit trying to redefine the lexicon. We don't care how many Nobel "Peace" Prizes are awarded to Yasser Arafat, he is the most notorious terrorist in the Middle East!
Quote of the week...
"Well, I like to do my own research so I think what I would say is that we haven't found Saddam Hussein and I don't know anyone who's running around saying he didn't exist. It takes time. Does that sound reasonable?" --Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the continuing search for Iraq's WMD.
Open query...
"Truth is the first casualty. Is credibility the second?" --Saturday's headline over a New York Times article that ought to have been a critical self-examination in the unwinding of the Jayson Blair fabrication and dezinformatsia scandals at the paper -- but instead discussed the controversy over the whereabouts of Iraq's WMD
News from the Swamp...
In the Executive Branch, President Bush has received high marks in The Federalist for his actions in defense of our nation since he took office. His handling of national-security issues since 9-11 has been second to none. But the President has received some well deserved criticism in these pages for his domestic policies. It is not enough to continue rationalizing the Bush administration's decidedly Left-of-Center domestic policy positions as being necessitated by pragmatic political calculations.
In his campaign for the presidency, then Gov. Bush articulated clearly his intent to appoint "constitutional constructionists" to the federal bench, and he has not wavered in that determination. Nonetheless, what the nation also needs is a constitutional constructionist in the Executive Branch -- one who will uphold his oath to "defend the Constitution"! It is past time for Mr. Bush to become our Constitution's most vocal advocate on issues like spending cuts and containment, if not elimination, of unconstitutional domestic social programs -- starting with the Department of Education. Instead, he has renewed or expanded many such programs and has taken the art of deficit spending to new highs. In fact, spending by the central government has grown by more than $500 billion in just three years and is growing faster now than at any time since LBJ launched his infamous Great Society welfare state.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates this year's budget deficit will balloon to $400 billion, accounting for 4% of the nation's whole earnings (as gross domestic product). The central government's 8% spending rise from 2001 to 2002 is steeper than even during the Clinton administration's Demo spending spree of 1993-1994, when the comparable climb was 4.8%. Expected increases in Medicare and other nondiscretionary programs were matched by discretionary spending boosts in unemployment benefits, education, farm subsidies, and road projects.
Granted, the dreaded "Potomac Fever," which is epidemic among much of the political class living inside the Washington Beltway, grossly distorts reality for all infected. However, from out here in the heartland, Newton's law of gravity still applies. We know that fruit does not fall too far from its tree, or the Bush in this case. We are waiting impatiently for signs that this president can apply the same constitutional constructionist standards he seeks in the Judicial Branch -- to the Executive Branch.
Remember when Bill Clinton declared "the era of big government is over"? Of course, he never really meant it -- it's a sentence containing the word "is," after all. We still hope the Bush administration would make good on Clinton's promise.
On the Hill, as we noted last week, in advance of Flag Day -- tomorrow -- the House approved a Flag Desecration Amendment by a margin of 300-125. The Federalist's editors have wrestled with this proposed amendment. Though we are somewhat sympathetic with the Libertarian objections on this issue, our principal qualm is that government's founding document should be amended only for significant corrective objectives -- like replacing the Sixteenth Amendment's income-tax provision, with a flat rate or national sales tax, or adding a balanced-budget amendment.
It is important to note that the anti-flag-desecration amendment would not be required if the letter and intent of our Constitution had not been so grossly misconstrued by the Leftjudiciary -- the same Leftist cadre who want to remove "under God" from the pledge to that flag. It is our position that the Constitution's First Amendment is clear in its limitation on the central government to abridge the freedom of speech or of the press. Thus, we do not accept that flag burning is a constitutionally protected form of speech any more than, for example, pornography is a protected form of speech. It is only because the courts have construed such expressions to be "speech" that such an amendment and its empowerment of Congress to determine the legality of burning our national symbol -- under which many patriots have been laid to rest -- is necessary.
That, of course, does not stop flag burning as a means of protest; it simply adds a consequence. If such a consequence is the will of the people, but the Leftjudiciary has, once again, overruled the will of the people through "interpretation" of the original intent of our Constitution, then we stand with the people.
Of course, there is another option. Congress could grant immunity to anyone who beats a flag-burner to a pulp as an expression of free "speech."