The View From Andromeda

Michael Moore's Minutemen: The Glorious Struggle

2005-08-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

Can’t resist yet another follow-up on the latest exploits of Michael Moore's Minutemen. This latest outrage was so diabolical, so despicable, so depraved, so barbaric that it cannot go unnoted. Let’s recall Michael’s famous words once again:

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."

To which I would respond: Michael, did you catch the latest news from Baghdad? Did you hear what your courageous Minutemen accomplished today? It was masterful. You should be proud.

Three well-timed bombs, all calculated for maximum carnage. The first intrepid Minuteman detonated his vehicle outside the crowded Nahda bus station in central Baghdad, the Iraqi equivalent of Manhattan's Port Authority Terminal, right at the peak of morning work traffic. A few minutes later a second heroic Minuteman blew his ride in the open-air station's parking lot, well-targeted to catch the fleeing. Fifteen minutes later a third mighty Moore Minuteman let loose near the Kindi Hospital as many of the wounded were arriving, finishing off those evil commuters as well as medics.

“Hours later, the charred remains of those buses lay scattered across the site, and policemen inspecting them pulled out items such as a baby's milk bottle and tattered pieces of clothing... By noon, the morgue of a nearby hospital was overflowing with bodies, and fresh corpses being brought there had to be stacked outside in the 120-degree heat,” reports the NY Times.

Let’s update the Michael Moore Minutemen scoreboard: add 43 people killed and 76 wounded, innocent civilians all. A truly stellar achievement.

Witnessing this atrocity is to look into the face of pure evil. Maybe Michael Moore could attempt some claim to ignorance when he labeled these monsters “Minutemen” back in April 2004. A man with any integrity would have since apologized, in humble regret, for such outrageous remarks and done so some time ago. Helpful thoughts to keep in mind the next time Moore rolls out his next book or film.

Lance

2005-07-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

He's got my vote. And I don't mean for Athlete of the Year. Lance Armstrong is the greatest athlete of all time. Winning 7 straight Tours--assuming no last stage disasters this weekend--was unthinkable until Lance came along. The greatest of all cycling stage races is simply too grueling, too treacherous and too competitive for any one rider to dominate it flawlessly for the greater part of a decade. But Lance, astonishingly, has done it.

It's often hard to appreciate fully the significance of contemporary events or achievements. Maybe proximity throws off our perspective. To help avoid this mistake and to savor Armstrong's final Tour, I've been concurrently reading his book, It's Not About the Bike. As a small tribute, I'd like to quote what was for me one of the more meaningful comments I gleaned from the book, insights gained from the depths of his battle against cancer, and just perhaps a clue to understanding his greatness:

"To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe--what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery....I didn't fully see until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday."

Well said, Lance. And well done.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths

2005-06-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

Despite strenuous attempts to maintain a minute-by-minute count of American KIA in Iraq and to publicize this running total each and every time casualties are reported, similar efforts have never been applied to the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed by enemy forces. With the release of figures by Iraq's Interior Ministry, that has now changed. According to Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr some 12,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by insurgents in the last 18 months. Civilian deaths have, of course, been frequently used by war opponents to disparage Iraq's liberation as a disaster for the Iraqi people. Probably the best known of these efforts was published last fall, a report which concluded that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed due to the US invasion. The recent report by the Iraqi Interior Ministry offers a useful opportunity to revisit this 100,000 casualty claim.

Just in case you missed it, here's a recap. On October 29, 2004, the web edition of the British journal, Lancet, published the results of a study which concluded 100,000 civilian deaths had occurred as a result of the US invasion. The report's authors derived this "100,000" figure by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began, and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. The report states: "We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period." By "95% CI 8000-194 000" the authors mean that they were 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000.

A better example of the wedding of political propaganda and junk science would be tough to find. On the political front, it is quite revealing that the author of the study insisted that Lancet publish this study BEFORE the US election. Lancet happily complied and whizzed through the peer-review process in weeks (it normally takes 3-6 months) and published this report the weekend before the US presidential election--your classic October Surprise. Thankfully such deviousness was not rewarded.

For perspective, it's important to keep in mind that all other attempts to come up with a figure for Iraqi civilian deaths have concluded that the number is in the 15-30,000 range. This includes some very respected names such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Iraq Body Count, the Brooking Institute's Iraqi Index, and the Shaik Omar Clinic in Baghdad.

Many researchers have commented, not surprisingly, that this spread of data, 8,000 to 194,000, is so wide that the authors' results are meaningless. Common sense alone would seem sufficient to conclude that. Just how did they arrive at 98,000 rather than, say, 14,000 or 154,000? They basically split the difference of this enormous data spread!

But it gets worse. In their pre-invasion baseline data they include NO deaths due to violence! Imagine, in a 14-month period under Saddam's lovely rule--no violent deaths at all! Given that Saddam's murderous rampages and mass purges have been estimated to have killed 1-3 million Iraqis over his 30 years of tyranny, it's a little tough to look at such data without laughing out loud. Just one example: About 2 or 3 days before the invasion, Saddam's Special Forces gunned down 170 worshippers at a mosque after Friday prayers in Southern Iraq just because they protested against his regime (source: Alliance Internationale pour la Justice, NGO, strictly anti-war).

And worse. The executive summary of the report makes this assertion: "Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children." If you exclude Falluja, the entire estimate of 98,000 deaths is based on a grand total of 21 violent deaths reported by those surveyed, and the assertion about women and children is based on the deaths of 4 children and 2 women! Note also that the study conducted surveys in war-torn Falluja but NONE in peaceful Basra, the second largest city in Iraq. Hmm. It appears that the authors were counting on most people only reading the summary, or second-hand reports based on the summary, and not bothering to download and read the full pdf.

Some additional food for thought: How many deaths are likely to occur in a brutalized country in which all the criminals were let out of prison as the Coalition army advanced and the police fell apart? (Did you know Saddam left that little parting gift for his beloved Iraq?) Further, the study was sensible enough to admit that many of the male violent deaths may be combatant deaths. You think? And ask yourself: Except for the Falluja operation, haven't most civilian deaths that you've heard of following the end of the initial invasion been at the hands of the suicide bombers? Shouldn't the enemy fighters, whose main tactic is to blend into the civilian population and hide behind women and children and in mosques and hospitals, be held responsible for many if not most of the civilian deaths? Can anyone reasonably deny that we have worked hard to avoid civilian deaths, and had the technology to do so, more than in any other war in history?

Of course liberations spill blood. But given Saddam's record, the liberation of Iraq drastically reduced the number of needless innocent deaths over the next thirty years. The first 30 years of Saddam cost millions of lives. Millions. The likelihood that the next 30 years under democratic rule will come anywhere near that is virtually nil. The bottom line is that life was preserved by the liberation. And this leaves aside the important point that it's life of greater liberty. The truth is, there have probably been 15,000 to 30,000 civilian deaths due, directly or indirectly, to the liberation. The new Iraqi government statistics confirm that a sizeable portion that didn't die as crime victims, died at the hands of terrorists.

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Update (July 21, 2005)

A recently published report from Iraq Body Count, an anti-war British research group, in large part confirms my assertions outlined above. In the two-year period ending March 2005 they estimate that there have been 24,865 Iraqi civilian casualities. They concluded that U.S.-led forces were responsible for about 37 per cent of those deaths and that most were killed during the invasion phase of the war. Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for a roughly equal number of civilian casualties, some 36 per cent by their calculations.

Iraq On PBS

2005-06-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

After another morning of listening to the latest litany of car bombings on Morning Edition and having that passed off as news coverage of Iraq, I'm fed up and must vent. To make matters worse an in-depth piece on Iraq was similarly focused on the negative side of the conflict: post traumatic stress disorder among returning female soldiers. Sprinkled in with this story was a discussion about the killing of children to protect oneself and one's comrades against an ambush setup. Don't get me wrong. Car bombings, civilian deaths and traumatized soldiers are part of this story; traumatized soldiers and civilian deaths, at least, would be part of any war story. But when this is the just about the only faire being served up day after day, one gets mentally malnourished and hungry for a well-rounded meal.

I listen to NPR almost every weekday morning and afternoon and the best I can recollect I've only heard one in-depth piece that I would consider to be telling the "positive" side of the story over a span of two years of war coverage. Ironically it told the story of several GIs who returned from Iraq frustrated by the news coverage here and how none of the good being accomplished by our soldiers is getting any exposure. I can still recall the feelings I had, that sense of almost, well, shock that I was hearing something like this on NPR. Was I accidentally tuned to a different station? Momentarily a little bit of my faith in the balance and objectivity of Public radio was restored. That didn't last long under the bad news barrage of the ensuing days and weeks. Imagine the opinion one would have of California if all one ever heard was the latest inner-city gang killings headlined in the evening news?

My more cynical side says that I'm confronting the journalistic legacy of Vietnam. Heck, if a war waged by the most powerful army on earth could be stopped by sapping the resolve of the American public, why not another? That's powerful, seductive stuff for a member of the media. And if you're personally against the war, as I'm sure most all NPR journalists are, who could possibly resist another drink of that potent punch? Hmm, I sense my cynical side convincing me again. I suspect that future Pentagon war planners would do well to include our illustrious Fourth Estate into their pre-war analysis of enemy strengths and weaknesses.

But NPR shouldn't be let off the hook so flippantly. The stakes here are too high to just dismiss this as a kind of (media) boys will be (media) boys issue. People--lots of them, including our own men and women--are dying and being maimed for life. Undercutting the war effort by chipping away at public support through one-sided coverage is the best gift imaginable to the enemy fighters currently blasting and hacking their way across Iraq and can only embolden them to fight on and fight harder, and among the worst offenses perpetrated against our soldiers. To consistently tell only one side of a major story amounts to not really telling the story at all. Other descriptors such as journalistic malpractice and propaganda also come to mind. And immoral.

Perhaps, I said foolishly, all NPR needs is to be reminded that there is an enormous other side to this story that they've overlooked. You can't fight a war without heroism, but can you remember a single hero, American or otherwise, military or civilian, acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in or out of combat? Hey NPR, how about a series featuring the unsung heroes of this conflict, both Iraqi and coalition? You've got plenty of material to work with here. There are literally thousands of true modern day heroes in this conflict who are risking their lives daily to give birth to a new, free Iraq, from kids who turn in their "insurgent" fathers, to soldiers who exhibit valor on the battlefield or while helping under fire to rebuild schools, clinics and water systems, to expats who leave safe, comfortable lives in the West and return to offer their skills toward the rebuilding effort, to the Pat Tillmans who volunteer for this war or for redeployment out of a desire to protect and serve their country.

Need more ideas, NPR? How about an in-depth look at enemy tactics in this war, complete with some justifiable outrage over the use of women and children, hospitals and mosques, or the effort to gain mileage out of any civilian casualties whether actually caused by coalition forces or not? Or how about the many signs of an Iraqi society coming back to life after years of brutal tyranny, such as a burgeoning free press, couples lining up to marry in record numbers, or the proliferation of internet access, satellite TV, homegrown blogs and cell phones? How about it NPR?

Guantanamo Gulag

2005-05-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

During a press conference to announce its newly published annual report, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan stated "Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time." Of course, she has reference to the U.S. detention facility for Taliban and al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Equally well-known is the reference to the system of forced-labor prison camps of the former Soviet Union. Shame on Ms. Khan, and shame on Amnesty International.

Next to the Jewish Holocaust, the atrocities committed against humanity in the Soviet Gulag represent one of the worst crimes in history. Perhaps the best known of the Gulag camp complexes was Kolyma, an area about six times the size of France that contained more than 100 camps. About three million are thought to have died there from its establishment in 1931 to 1953, the year of Stalin's death. Extreme production quotas, brutality, hunger and harsh
elements were major reasons for the Gulag's high fatality rate, which was as high as 80% during the first months in many camps. Logging and mining were among the most common of activities, as well as the harshest. In a Gulag mine, one person's production quota might be as high as 29,000 pounds of ore per day. Failure to meet a quota resulted in a loss of vital rations, a cycle that usually had fatal consequences. Inmates were often forced to work in inhuman conditions. In spite of the brutal climate, they were almost never adequately clothed or fed. The Gulag scheme was adapted into the infamous concentration camp system used during World War II, especially as Nazi death factories.

Yesterday, Amnesty International’s Secretary General used the memory of that state-sponsored Soviet mass-murder as a political prop. Comparison with Guantanamo diminishes the reality of what happened in the Gulag Archipelago, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously dubbed it. It also is the worst kind of vicious slander against the United States. AI’s actions cheapen the memory of a horrific crime and do a terrible disservice to this country at a perilous time as we struggle to properly respond to the worst act of terrorism in history, and need to examine the dangers we face with clarity and purpose.

A group that lacks the basic moral vision needed to distinguish between Stalin's death camps and detention centers for terrorists who kill civilians isn’t worthy of our respect. Shame on Amnesty International.

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Update (June 7, 2005)

Appearing on Fox News last Sunday, William Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, offered at least a partial retraction for the outrageous Guantanamo = gulag comment made some two weeks ago by his boss, the organization's Secretary General. "Clearly, this is not an exact or a literal analogy," he stated. "In size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag. ... People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor."

These comments are a welcome correction, but it seems the esteemed Executive Director needs a little help here. The gulag camps were set up to crush political opposition and became home to anyone who dared to speak out against the government in the former Soviet Union. Under Joseph Stalin, they were used to maintain the Soviet state by keeping its populace in a state of terror. The intention at Guantanamo is to prevent terror not create it.

It is estimated that as many as 50 million people died in the Soviet gulag. 50 million people. For the record, not one prisoner has died at Guantanamo Bay. Fairly significant difference, wouldn't you say Mr. Schulz? It is very sad to see an otherwise fine organization such as Amnesty International demonstrate such astonishingly poor judgment and damage their credibility with such reckless rhetoric.

One would wish that an organization that sets itself up as an international moral arbiter, would now evidence a greater ability to admit its own mistakes and to make right its wrongs, not to mention a larger capacity for self-reflection. What a marvelous opportunity was missed to demonstrate by their own example the very thing they demand of others.

It's All About Roe

2005-05-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here on the eve of nuclear option deployment, it's helpful to remember what brought us to this ignominious showdown. In a word, it's all about Roe. Sure, many Democratic senators raise other issues with Bush's most controversial judicial nominees, but the common thread is their abortion rights positions.

Some 32 years ago, the Roe decision brought the democratic process on abortion rights to a screeching halt. Even those of us who support abortion rights should recognize that was a very unfortunate way for a democracy to proceed. And damaging.

Yes, the legal impediment to abortion was removed, but at what cost? Since that momentous decision we have suffered through a bruising--sometimes even bloody--cultural civil war for a third of a century, the federal judiciary has become dangerously politicized and the prime battleground for political struggle, and now the Senate is on the brink, perhaps, of thorough dysfunction. Quite a high price to pay for frustrating the democratic process. Oh that the court in 1973 had had the sense and foresight to leave this issue to the State legislatures where it belongs.

It's ironic that Roe's fateful ending of the debate over abortion law stands poised to drive a change to the end of debate rules of the US Senate, which in turn will grease the path of conservative nominees to the federal bench, and perhaps to Roe's eventual undoing.

A Mother's Day Poem (By Hannah)

2005-05-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

Moms and kids were meant to be together,
That’s the way that it should be.
That’s why I’m part of you,
And you’re a part of me!

If you were a flower,
I would be your petals.
If you were a butterfly,
I would be your wings.
If you were a cat,
I would be your fur.
If you were a heart,
I would be your humps.
If you were a angel,
I would be your hallo!

Hannah, (Age 9)

Bias at PBS?

2005-05-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

The May 2, 2005 piece in the New York Times about political bias at PBS prompts me to enter the fray. Seems I've got that right since I've faithfully listened to PBS' two drive-time shows, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, for some 15 years now. Obviously there's a lot that I like about PBS programming or I wouldn't tune in so faithfully, though some of my preference is driven by my dislike of the commercial alternatives. Listening half the time to annoying adds did play a large part in driving me to PBS, but the quality and depth has kept me a fan. And whereas most commercial talk shows are ideologically extreme, I have found the PBS material reasonably balanced by comparison.

While it may be close to center, make no mistake about it: PBS is clearly left of center in its overall orientation. But don't get me wrong. NPR is certainly not the "National Communist Public Radio" or "National Propaganda Radio" that critics on the right make it out to be. The right only looks silly when it uses its heavy artillery in a situation like this. The level of bias once found on its airwaves has gradually moderated over the years that I've listened. Go back 10 to 15 years and all political commentary had a leftward lean to it and an openly conservative spokesperson was never heard. During their entire presidencies, I don't think Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst for NPR, ever had a kind word for Reagan or Bush Sr. Sure he criticized Clinton too, but it always came across as coming from a friend. Criticism of Republican presidents, by contrast, always seemed to carry a noticeable adversarial tone. One could also be excused for thinking that the liberal Brookings Institute was the only game in town given the near lock it had on the political reporting; they were clearly the go-to think tank for PBS.

Though some remnant of these issues hang on, in recent years a subtle shift toward the center and more balance has been evident. Long before the addition of Paul Gigot's The Journal Editorial Report, conservative political commentators actually began to appear in the lineup. Members of the American Enterprise Institute and even the Heritage Foundation can sometimes be heard too. The term "prolife" also entered their lexicon some years back, balancing out the previously slanted portrayal of the abortion debate under the terms "prochoice" and "anti-abortion." These are welcome changes for a public institution under legal obligation to be non-partisan.

But for an organization committed by their own Code of Ethics and Practices to "unbiased coverage," treating all "important views on a subject... even-handedly," and to separating out personal "political ideology" from subjects being covered, the recent presidential election demonstrated some significant progress still to be made. Most egregious was a pattern of partisanship evident on Morning Edition during the daily campaign diary segments. When summarizing Bush's talking points, the piece would often supply snappy counterpoints as if to neutralize, quickly, any positive benefit for Bush from having replayed his soundbites. For Kerry campaign highlights it was a whole different program--the counterpoint was conspicuously absent. If any criticism was offered it would invariably deal with non-ideological matters such as campaign strategy or the like. Sorry NPR, but the "personal political ideology" of your staff bled right through.

Just as I fervently believe that our government should stay absolutely neutral on religious matters, so also should National P-u-b-l-ic Radio, funded partly with our tax dollars, on things political.

My Magical Butterfly Ride! (Hannah's story)

2005-04-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

One beautiful sunny day, I was reading at my desk when a shimmering butterfly came swishing in my window! It landed softly on my nose. But as I was staring it down I noticed I was shrinking until I was the size to ride a butterfly. As I sighed, the butterfly came closing down and gently landed right next to me. “Hello” she began, “my name is Lily” she whispered. “My name is Hannah and I was wondering if you could make me my regular size?” I answered.

“Well,” as Lily explained, “I was hoping you would go on an adventure with me to the rainforest?” “What are you waiting for? Of course I’ll come! But how am I going to get there?” I sobbed. “You could fly on my back,” she answered. As soon as I heard that, I jumped on Lily’s back, feeling very excited because I had never been to the rainforest before. When we finally got there I was amazed at all the cool looking animals. As I was flying on Lily’s back I saw bright colored frogs, lots of beautiful birds, fluffy cute animals (like monkeys) and leaf cutting ants! Soon enough she said I had to go home, but I didn’t want to leave! But she didn’t listen.

As she was flying I fell asleep and when I woke up I was sitting in my chair with the book I was reading was still in front of me...and I was my regular size. But nobody knows if I was dreaming or if it really happened!

The End

Hannah, 8 years old

Life Without Afterlife: Making Peace with Mortality

2005-04-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

This won’t make for light reading, but I’ve been moved by the recent trio of headline deaths—Terry Schiavo, the Pope and Prince Rainier III of Monacco—to collect my thoughts about death and, in particular, the afterlife. OK, I’ll lay it right out: I’m part of the minority on this one among Americans. If the surveys are accurate, I belong to the 20 to 30% who don’t believe in an afterlife. But I do consider myself to be in good company since neither Albert Einstein nor Isaac Asimov believed either.

I was once a fundamentalist Christian, so obviously I haven’t always thought this way. As a Christian I held to an afterlife mainly because it was part of the belief package; now I think as I do because I’m convinced it is true. That has to tell you something.

Since we have an almost infinite personal stake in the matter, it’s especially difficult to look at this issue objectively and to resist the temptation to project our desire to survive beyond the grave. Demosthenes’ famous quote is quite apt here: “Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." So for starters, I think it's reasonable to be very suspicious of a belief that just happens to coincide with our strongest desires and our most powerful vested interest—self-preservation.

But the case against an afterlife reaches far beyond mere suspicion. Let’s be brutally frank with ourselves: There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body. None. Near death experiences, for all the hype, are just that—the experience near death—and not the testimony of someone who has actually died and returned, say days or weeks later, to tell the story. All our direct experience tells us that souls die with bodies. When parts of the brain are damaged by disease or trauma, or removed in operations, various functions disappear and mental capacities change. I watched this cruel process occur with my own father as Alzheimer’s disease attacked his brain and step-by-step his very personality changed. He literally evolved into a different person than he had been all his life, saying and doing things unimaginable for him.

Current neurological research confirms our common sense conclusions about body and soul. To cite just one example, it has even been demonstrated that damage to the temporal lobes can induce mystical, religious-like experiences. The simplest explanation is that the soul is not separate: it is a function of the body. When all our brain functions cease, the available evidence indicates that all our individual consciousness and mind activities cease.

It also strains credibility to assert that we are different than the other life forms on the planet. We surely don't think that a slime mold, a walnut tree or a codfish has an eternal soul, so why should we humans be any different since we are the direct descendants of earth's earlier life forms and the "cousins" of all living things on the planet? (About the only animals that anyone imagines having a soul are pets like cats and dogs, but here again it is human attachment that is driving this belief.) Yes, we have a more highly developed brain than all other life, and because of this a much more elaborate culture, but does that justify believing we have some kind of permanent, immaterial self or spirit? My answer is no. Such an idea is little more than a mix of wish projection, egotism and superstition. As much as I might wish it were so, I see no real reason to justify this belief, and some very good reasons for not accepting it.

Now I can fully empathize with those who would seek refuge in a comfortable myth -- any myth at all -- to avoid facing the full impact of the end of self. The prospect of personal annihilation is staggeringly frightening. But if we value a life lived authentically, we must resist this natural survival impulse and be willing to face the prospect squarely that the story, our own story, may not have quite the happily-ever-after ending we’d hoped for. The alternative is to cling to a desperate compensatory mechanism that panders to our darkest fears, to live in an Alice’s Wonderland because it is more appealing, rather than embracing courageously the world that actually exists.

Coming to terms with the death of self is, no doubt, one of the hardest duties of life. But it is not for this reason an optional aspect of the journey; rather for a life fully lived, it is one of the primary spiritual tasks to be accomplished. To avoid this task by embracing immortality is a hindrance to authentic spirituality, a failure to rise to one of life’s stiffer challenges, and is, in essence, a denial of mortality. The choice is stark: remain a child, buffered against reality’s harshness with happy tales, or face reality squarely and mature into spiritual adulthood.

Though difficult, the process need not end in despair, meaninglessness or a melancholy resignation. Yes it is true that we continue to live on through our progeny, in the way that our lives have affected others, and in the endless recycling of our physical matter in the natural world. It is also true that death returns us to the exact state of non-being that existed before we were conceived, a state where there is no pain or reason for fear. As Einstein stated: “The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.” In my experience I have found this standard counsel helpful but insufficient in my efforts at making peace with my own mortality.

A more complete answer for me has come in the cultivation of two key perspectives. Alluded to above, I have found that nurturing my sense of connectedness to nature and its cycles, including the life/death cycle, goes a long ways toward making death seem natural and normal and not something to be loathed and explained away. Most important of all, I have found that gratitude is the key to facing mortality with grace. Though I don’t care for the nasty tone, N. Wilson in his paper, “Life after death: A fate worse than death,” jars his readers with the truth: “Like a greedy child, having stuffed its face with food, do you demand yet more?...Are you so obsessed with being you that you cannot accept the fact of your own non-existence?” Instead, like the kid who's thankful to have been given a part—any part—in the school play, we do far better to live every day with a spirit of gratitude for having been given a chance to play a part in the great drama of creation. Our moment in the sun is far longer, on average, than almost all other creatures. Enjoy the cosmic ride.

Iraq and Terrorism: Setting the Record Straight

2005-03-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

"Of course, we now know that there was no Iraq-al Qaeda connection," has now become, for war critics, a starting assumption and casually repeated refrain in print and blog alike. Ironically it was the 9/11 Commission Report's release last summer that provided a great amount of the impetus for this astonishing misrepresentation of the facts. Helped along by a willing mainstream press, nuanced statements in the report regarding the lack of evidence for Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration on the 9/11 attack were morphed into the black-and-white assertion that there was no relationship at all. Commenting on the report's findings, a June 17, 2004 front-page Washington Post headline declared "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Dismissed." "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie," read the New York Times headline on the same day. Al Gore now likes to refer to the "invented connection between al Qaeda and Iraq" and how it all amounts to a "big, flamboyant lie." Yes, according to the critics, Iraq-al Qaeda connections were just a fantasy, conjured up by White House warmongers. Some revisionists even claim that Iraq had very little if any meaningful links to terrorism at all.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just for starters, the 9/11 Commission Report "qualifies the finding of no 'collaborative relationship'--claiming only that there was no collaborative operational relationship for carrying out attacks against the United States."(James Thompson, commission member) Commission co-chairman, Thomas Kean, at a press conference on July 22, 2004: "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." And the commission's final report clearly reflects this reality, detailing numerous friendly contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The political motivation behind much of this is transparent. After all, it's not as if we were in the middle of a hard-fought presidential race where the administration's rationale for war was a primary target. And witness Wesley Clark's campaign trail conversion to the "no connection" crowd. In an October 2002 news conference in which he endorsed a New Hampshire Democrat for Congress, Clark said, "Certainly there's a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda." But once it became politically expedient, Clark the candidate suddenly changed his position to: "No hard evidence was ever distributed that linked Saddam with Al Qaeda." In a perfect world one would hope for at least some return to levelheadedness once the pressures of the campaign have passed, but instead the hyperbole has been codified.

Well, here's my small contribution toward setting the record straight. I first run down Iraq's terrorism rap sheet, and then the ample evidence of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda. It's instructive to keep in mind the warning stated in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq war intelligence: "Any indication of a relationship between these two hostile elements could carry great dangers to the United States."

IRAQ & TERRORISM

1) Iraq has been a regular on the U.S. State Department’s annual global terror report since it was first created almost 25 years ago.

2) International recognition of Iraq’s ongoing terrorist connections is evidenced by U.N. Security Council Resolutions, such as 687 (issued in 1991) and 1373 (2001), which prohibited Saddam Hussein from supporting terrorism or allowing terrorist cells and organizations to operate within the boundaries of Iraq.

3) Safe haven and support had been given by Saddam’s government for many years to radical Palestinian groups, including the one led by Abu Nidal. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s, Abu Nidal ranked among the world’s most wanted terrorists, whose gang murdered 407 people (including ten Americans) and maimed 788 more in attacks in 20 countries. One of the Abu Nidal Organization’s attacks included the bombing over the Ionian Sea of a TWA airliner flying from Israel to Greece in 1974 which killed all 88 people on board. His group was also famous for attacking a TWA ticket counter at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci airport in 1986 and targeting Lt. Col. Oliver North for death in the mid-1980s. According to an August 25, 2002 report in the
Sunday Times of London, Nidal furnished Libyan agents the Semtex (plastic explosive) bomb that destroyed Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988. Among the 259 persons killed in the air and 11 killed on the ground were 35 American college students. From 1999 until his death in 2002, Abu Nidal had taken refuge in Iraq where his organization became a wing of the Iraqi Baath Party. A representative of Abu Nidal’s organization from the Lebanese office stated that Abu Nidal went to Baghdad “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.”

4) Abu Abbas, Leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985 and killed the American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. Abbas was traveling on an Iraqi diplomatic passport and was granted safe haven by Saddam’s regime until he was captured in Baghdad by U.S. forces in April 2003.

5) In 1991 following the Gulf War, Saddam sent dozens of two-man teams--consisting of one Iraqi intelligence officer teamed up with a member of the Baghdad-supported Arab Liberation Front--throughout the world to strike at U.S. and Western targets. Among their attempted targets were the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Jakarta, Indonesia, a U.S. government building in Manilla, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, and numerous American and British banks.

6) In a 1992 presidential campaign speech, Al Gore made more than a dozen specific references to Iraqi–sponsored terrorism and cited a RAND Corporation study that reported “an estimated 1400 terrorists that were operating openly out of Iraq.”

7) In 1993, Iraq sent a team of intelligence assets to Kuwait City to assassinate George H. W. Bush and the Emir of Kuwait. Clinton Defense Secretary Les Aspin stated: “The evidence is very conclusive that it was the work of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and is an action that would have had to have been approved by the highest levels of the Iraqi government.” In defending the retaliatory Tomahawk missile strike against the Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters, Al Gore stated: “The suffering in Iraq can come to an end when Saddam Hussein’s regime is replaced…and I hope—and most of the world community hopes—that this regime based in terrorism and atrocities against his own people will be replaced. Over time, we hope to achieve that result.”

8) Iraq provided fake identity papers and safe haven to two of the key figures in the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York which killed six persons and wounded 1,042 others. Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi architect of the 1993 WTC bombing, entered America on an Iraqi passport. According to the 9/11 Commission Report Yousef has admitted that he “had hoped to kill 250,000 people.” Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted for mixing the chemicals in that WTC bombing, and still on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, fled to Baghdad after the attack and lived there for years afterwards. Richard Clarke, National Security Council Counterterrorism Coordinator for the Clinton administration, to the Sept. 11 Commission: "The Iraqi government didn't cooperate in turning Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the makers of the bomb that exploded at the World Trade Center, over and gave him sanctuary, as it did give sanctuary to other terrorists." Iraqi Intelligence Service documents, discovered in Tikrit following the 2003 invasion, indicate that Yasin had been living freely in Iraq, received regime-financed housing and a monthly living stipend. Another conspirator, Mohammed Salameh, made 46 calls to Iraq two months prior to the arrival in the U.S. of another conspirator from Baghdad; some of these calls were traced to a Baghdad-based intelligence operative for a neighboring country. Salameh drove the explosives-laden van and played a key role in obtaining the chemicals that made up the bomb. The late Jim Fox, head of the FBI’s New York office at the time of the 1993 bombing, and James Woolsey, CIA director under Clinton from 1993 to 1995, both concluded that the Iraqi government had a hand in the attack.

9) Iraq was host to numerous terrorist training camps, the most well-known of which was Salman Pak, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Sabah Khodada, a former captain in the Iraqi Army who worked at Salman Pak for 6 months in the mid-1990’s, states that this camp was run by a special operations division of Iraqi intelligence and that “non-Iraqi Arabs” were among those being trained there. Khobada also stated that at this camp “…training is majorly in terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.” This camp was known by the UN weapons inspectors throughout the 1990s to house many of the Iraqi regime’s biological weapons research facilities. UN inspectors independently verified the existence of the training camps and the fuselage of an old airplane at Salman Pak. U.S. satellite imagery in 2002 confirmed the existence of an airplane, railroad cars and a double-decker bus at the facility. Following the invasion of Iraq, General Vincent Brooks, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, stated that coalition troops captured foreign fighters in the vicinity of the camp who spoke of being trained there. At an April 6, 2003 press briefing Brooks said that Salman Pak was just one of “a number of examples we found where there’s training activity happening inside Iraq.”

10) In 1998 Iraq attempted to recruit Islamic extremists to destroy the headquarters building of Radio Free Europe in Wenceslas Square in the historic center of Prague, a plot the U.S. State Department acknowledged in its annual global terror report.

11) Iraq has provided financial support for many Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Arab Liberation Front. Over the years, Iraq has provided millions of dollars in subsidies for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In March 2002, Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz announced publicly at a meeting in Baghdad that Saddam Hussein would raise the reward given to the families of Palestinian "martyrs" (i.e., suicide bombers) from $10,000 per family to $25,000. Between March 2002 and March 2003, 28 Palestinian suicide bombers killed 223 civilians including 12 Americans, and injured 1,209 others.

12) President Bill Clinton, on February 18, 1998, warned of "the predators of the 21st century…reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists." He warned that “They will be all more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them….There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of the region and security of the rest of us….In this century, we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination and, when necessary, action. In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now—a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists…who travel the world unnoticed."

13) Newsweek’s January 11, 1999 issue stated: “Here’s what is known so far: Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas—assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network.”

14) After September 11th, virtually every country in the world sent condolences, including longtime enemies—Castro’s Cuba, Libya’s Khadafi and the ruling Iranian mullahs. The one exception was Saddam Hussein's regime which publicly celebrated the terrorist attacks. Hussein commissioned murals for public display depicting airplanes exploding into the World Trade Center towers: one shows the planes painted in the colors of Iraqi airlines while Saddam's grinning portrait looms in the foreground in another. Footage of the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center towers were played over and over again on Iraq’s state-run television with the song “Down with America” playing in the background.

15) In September of 2002, Senator John Kerry stated: "It is imperative that we issue an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, and that would require immediate and full compliance, and if Hussein doesn't comply, the United States must be prepared to go in and, if need be, largely alone remove Saddam Hussein from power. There is also no question that Saddam Hussein continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction, and his success can threaten both our interests in the region and our security at home. ...Saddam may even miscalculate and slide these WMD off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It's the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat." And on another occasion in 2002 Kerry said: "I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue to combat terrorism, for instance, Saddam Hussein."

16) On Sept. 12, 2002 Senator John Edwards stated: "The terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam's arsenal, and there is every reason to believe that Saddam would turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of Sept. 11 had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On Sept. 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror." Earlier in 2002 Edwards had stated on the Larry King show: “I mean, we have three different countries [Iraq, N. Korea, Iran] that, while they all present serious problems for the United States -- they're dictatorships, they're involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.”

17) June 18, 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated: "I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received ...information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations." He also asserted that President Bush had personally thanked the Russian intelligence services for the information.

18) Head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay: "I think . . . we'll paint a picture of Iraq that was far more dangerous than even we thought it was before the war. It was a system collapsing. It was a country that had the capability in weapons of mass destruction areas and in which terrorists, like ants to honey, were going after it."

19) From the CIA report, Iraqi Support for Terrorism, published in January 2003: "Iraq continues to be a safehaven, transit point, or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel, and other allies. Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism."

20) The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq war intelligence reports: "From 1996 to 2003, the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] focused its terrorist activities on western interests, particularly against the U.S. and Israel. The CIA summarized nearly 50 intelligence reports as examples, using language directly from the intelligence reports. Ten intelligence reports, [redacted] from multiple sources, indicated IIS "casing" operations against Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague began in 1998 and continued into early 2003. The CIA assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of other reporting, that throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests. The CIA provided eight reports to support this assessment."

21) Iraqi Lieutenant General Riadh Abdallah defected to the U.S. in 1999 and has never been affiliated with the Iraqi National Congress or any other exile group. In 2003, three weeks before the Iraq war started when some in Congress scoffed at the assertion of the Iraqi regime’s support of international terrorism, Abdallah in bemused disbelief retorted that “Saddam is the father and the grandfather of terrorists.” Indeed.

IRAQ & AL QAEDA

“The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.” --Osama bin Laden, 1998 fatwa

"We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents…only between Muslims and nonbelievers. And the life of a non-believer has no value. There's no sanctity in it.... We assume the purpose is to kill as many people as possible, to spread the terror.... Terror is the language of the 21st century. If I want something, I terrorize you to achieve it." --Al Qaeda member, Omar Bakri Muhammad, interviewed in the July 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine

"...the general pattern that emerges is one of al Qaeda's enduring interest in acquiring chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) expertise from Iraq." --Iraqi Support for Terrorism, CIA Report

1) Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Saddam remained an inveterate secularist and avowed enemy of the radical Islamists and therefore could never have collaborated with al Qaeda, the Iraqi leader undertook in the late 1980’s a wide-ranging public relations campaign to recast himself as an Islamic holy warrior. To counter the criticism that he was anti-Islam, Saddam started to adjust his rhetoric, inserting religious praise and invocations to Allah, and released prominent clerics who had been held by his regime. Iraq also began to support several Islamist Palestinian groups opposed to Israel. Additionally, beginning in June 1990, Saddam inaugurated a series of “Popular Islamic Conferences” in Baghdad. Attendees ranged from religious bureaucrats to members of a wide-variety of radical Islamists and terrorists who openly called for holy war against the U.S. At one such conference in January 26, 1993 one of Saddam’s top aides, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, stated: “We are blessed in this country for having the Islamic holy warrior Saddam Hussein as a leader, who is guiding the country in a religious holy war against the infidels and unbelievers.” Another speaker praised “the mujahed Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers. Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state.” One day before the Allied bombing campaign began in January 1991, during the first Gulf War, Saddam added “God is Great” to the Iraqi national flag. In 1994, Saddam incorporated elements of Islamic law into Iraqi legal code, including Islamic punishments such as the death penalty for prostitution and the severing of hands for theft. He also initiated laws forbidding public consumption of alcohol, introduced compulsory study of the Koran at all educational levels, required all Baath party members to pass a religious exam and even included prayers in party meetings. When Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected in 1995 he stated that “the government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country.”

2) Shortly before the first Gulf War, bin Laden sent emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials.

3) Iraqi intelligence documents, obtained from the offices of the Iraqi intelligence Service in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion, list Osama bin Laden as an Iraqi intelligence asset in 1992. The documents comment that Osama bin Laden “is in good relationship with our section in Syria.”

3) Numerous sources have reported a 1993 nonaggression pact between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to U.S. court documents from the African embassy trial, bin Laden reached an understanding with Saddam under which he forbade al Qaeda operations to be mounted against the Iraqi leader.

4) According to the 9/11 Commission Report, a senior Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994. (Keep in mind that this is the report that the Times and Post headlined as proof of no Iraq-al Qaeda connection.)

5) The former deputy director of Iraqi intelligence now in U.S. custody, Faruq Hijazi, says that in 1994 bin Laden asked the Iraqi regime during a face-to-face meeting for assistance in acquiring Chinese-made anti-ship limpet mines and the establishment of al Qaeda training camps inside Iraq. U.S. intelligence documents refer to Faruq Hijazi as the “point man” in the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. Even if these requests weren’t fulfilled, bin Laden’s willingness to accept help from Saddam disproves the notion that he wouldn’t work with an infidel like Saddam and demonstrates his willingness to upgrade the relationship from the informal nonaggression pact reached in 1993 to active collaboration.

6) In 1994, Saddam and bin Laden shared a joint interest in an al Qaeda-linked Algerian terrorist organization, Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA). Stanley Bedlington, a former CIA senior counterterrorism analyst, stated: “There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believe some of the money came from Iraq.”

7) According to the 2002 CIA report, “Iraq and al Qaeda: Interpreting a Murky Relationship,” senior al Qaeda leader, Abu Hajer al Iraqi, went on an al Qaeda mission to Iraq to discuss cooperation with the Iraqi government in 1995.

8) Reporting from a foreign intelligence source disclosed that bin Laden was receiving training on bomb making from the IIS's [Iraqi Intelligence Service] principal technical expert on making sophisticated explosives, Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed. Brigadier Salim was observed at bin Laden's farm in Khartoum in Sept.-Oct. 1995 and again in July 1996, in the company of the Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti. Tikriti used an Iraqi delegation traveling to Khartoum to discuss bilateral cooperation as his "cover" for his own entry into Sudan to meet with bin Laden and Hassan al-Turabi. The Iraqi intelligence chief and two other IIS officers met at bin Laden's farm and discussed bin Laden's request for IIS technical assistance in: a) making letter and parcel bombs; b) making bombs which could be placed on aircraft and detonated by changes in barometric pressure; and c) making false passports. Bin Laden specifically requested that Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed remain with him in Sudan. The Iraqi intelligence chief instructed Salim to remain in Sudan with bin Laden as long as required.

9) The National Security Agency intercepted telephone conversations between al Qaeda-supported Sudanese military officials and the head of Iraq's chemical weapons program in 1996. The Sunday Times of London reported: “Bypassing the ban of weapons of mass destruction which the UN imposed on Baghdad after its defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein and the Islamic government of General Omar al Bashir in Khartoum are making and stockpiling mustard gas for their mutual benefit….the gas is being made at a factory at Wau, in southwest Sudan, and that the Sudanese regime has already used it twice against rebels. Production began in the autumn of 1995 under a clandestine deal between Khartoum and Baghdad to circumvent the UN’s military and trade embargo on Iraq. The deal followed the visit of a high-level Iraqi military delegation, led by the head of the chemical weapons directorate of the Iraqi defense military.” In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Mubarak al Madhi, the head of Sudan’s National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group of opposition parties, reported that an engineer and an intelligence official, both Iraqi colonels, worked with twelve Sudanese chemical engineers to develop chemical weapons.

10) An internal Iraqi Intelligence document, authenticated by U.S. intelligence and first reported on June 25, 2004, in the New York Times employs the term "relationship" to describe Iraq-al Qaeda contacts. Given bin Laden's 1996 move from Sudan to Afghanistan, this document states that "...cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."

11) An indictment from the Clinton-era Justice Department cited Iraqi assistance on al Qaeda "weapons development" in 1998: “In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”

12) Based on information provided by the key accomplice witness at the 1998 embassy bombing trial, Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, the al Qaeda liaison for Iraq relations was an Iraqi named Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, one of bin Laden's closest friends.

13) In December 1998, President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a 70-hour bombing campaign that began on December 16 and ended three days later, on December 19, 1998. According to press reports at the time, Faruq Hijazi, deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer bin Laden safe haven in Iraq. CIA reporting in a memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms this meeting and relates two others. Washington Post on February 14, 1999: “The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers.” The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq war intelligence: the CIA's counterterrorism center cited four "intelligence reports mentioning Saddam Hussein's standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden."

14) A "former senior Iraqi intelligence officer" reported that "the Iraqi intelligence service station in Pakistan was Baghdad's point of contact with al Qaeda.” He also said bin Laden visited Baghdad in Jan. 1998 and met with Tariq Aziz. A foreign government service reported that an Iraqi delegation, including at least two Iraqi intelligence officers formerly assigned to the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan, met in late 1998 with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

15) Ayman al Zawahiri, one of bin Laden’s top deputies, visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi Vice President on 3 February 1998. The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah, al-Falluja and Iraqi Kurdistan under the leadership of Abdul Aziz. This visit coincided with a payment of $300,000 from Iraqi
intelligence to Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged with al Qaeda later that year.

16) In April 1998 a small band of al Qaeda leaders traveled to Baghdad to celebrate Saddam’s birthday. While there, the al Qaeda visitors accompanied their hosts, Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s sons to an extravagant celebration in Tikrit.

17) According to the 9/11 Commission Report: In February 1999 the Clinton administration considered flying U-2 missions over Afghanistan to gather additional intelligence on al Qaeda. Richard Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin's having met with Iraqi officials, who "may have offered him asylum." Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. Other National Security Council staff also stated that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Ladin in Baghdad. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein's service, and it would be "virtually impossible" to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared. Even one U-2 flight, Clarke argued, would require Pakistani approval, and if Pakistani elements friendly to Bin Ladin warned him “old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad." (Remember, according to the Washington Post the 9/11 Commission Report demonstrated "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Dismissed.")

18) Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi diplomat and VIP airport greeter employed by the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia, was photographed on January 5, 2000 by Malaysian intelligence escorting September 11 terrorist Khalid al Mihdhar—one of the hijackers of AA flight 77 that struck the Pentagon--from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the residence of al Qaeda operative, Yazid Sufaat. Sufaat’s condominium was the site of a 3-day planning meeting, from January 5-8, 2000, for the bombing of the USS Cole and the September 11 attacks. This meeting was attended by 9 top al Qaeda terrorists, including Ramzi bin al Shibh, who has boasted of his role as the “coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation” (the 9/11 attacks) and Nawaz al Hanzi, one of the hijackers who piloted AA flight 77. Shakir was found in Qatar six days after 9/11 with contact information for terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, the September 11 hijackings, and bin Laden's close friend and confidant, Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, the al Qaeda liaison for Iraq relations. He also had information pertaining to a 1995 al Qaeda plot to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific. CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted.

19) Bin Laden has said that acquiring weapons of mass destruction is the “religious duty” of Muslims. Not surprisingly, al Qaeda worked for years to develop WMD in both Sudan and Afghanistan. But frustrated by their lack of progress, bin Laden and his deputy Mohammed Atef decided to seek help from Iraq, a country with a 30-year history of WMD programs. Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for chemical and biological weapons training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was "encouraged" after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training. Recovered al Qaeda documents from the fall of 2001 contain formulas for sarin, a deadly chemical agent. A 64-tape al Qaeda library, recovered in 2002 by CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson from an Afghan house where bin Laden had stayed, includes footage of chemical weapons being tested on dogs. Dead dogs and other animals have frequently been seen in past satellite images of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Ahmed Ressam, a man trained by al Qaeda and convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, testified in court about al Qaeda tests using cyanide to kill dogs. Richard Clarke, the senior Clinton administration counterterrorism official, told the Washington Post in 1999 that the U.S. government was "sure" Iraq had supported al Qaeda chemical weapons programs. The Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report on pre-Iraq war intelligence cites "twelve reports received from sources the CIA described as having varying reliability" that pointed to "Iraq or Iraqi national involvement in al Qaeda's CBW [chemical/biological weapons] efforts."

20) The Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia.

21) Following Hafez al Assad’s crackdown on the radical Islamic group, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, many of the radicals were provided safe-haven in Iraq and trained with Iraqis at the al Rashdiya camp outside Baghdad. One of the Syrians who spent time at the Iraqi camp was Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas. Yarkis, captured in Madrid in November 2001, was leader of al Qaeda’s Spain operation. (He was also the roommate of lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and was directly involved in planning and financing the 9/11 attacks.) Among the documents Spanish authorities seized from the Spanish al Qaeda cell in November 2001 was an invitation to a party at the residence of the Iraqi ambassador to Spain.

22) Mohamed Atta, leader of the September 11 hijackers, piloted American Airlines flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The Czech intelligence service reports that Ahmed al Ani, a consul at the Iraqi embassy and senior Iraqi intelligence agent, “ordered the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) finance officer to issue Atta funds from the IIS financial holdings in the Prague office.” On April 22, 2001, Ahmed al Ani was expelled from The Czech Republic for spy-related activities.

23) Satellite photographs showed al Qaeda members in 2001 traveling en masse to a compound in northern Iraq financed, in part, by the Iraqi regime.

24) CIA Director, George Tenet, provided the Senate Intelligence Committee this assessment in a closed session on September 17, 2002: "There is evidence that Iraq provided al Qaeda with various kinds of training--combat, bomb-making, [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] CBRN. Although Saddam did not endorse al Qaeda's overall agenda and was suspicious of Islamist movements in general, he was apparently not averse, under certain circumstances, to enhancing bin Laden's operational capabilities."

25) In Sept. 2002, an al Qaeda affiliate group in the Philippines founded by bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Abu Sayyaf, announced a campaign of terror aimed at the “enemies of Islam”—westerners and Filipinos who make common cause with them. On Oct. 2, 2002 Abu Sayyaf bombed a café in Zamboanga City frequented by American soldiers. One week later Filipino authorities found an unexploded bomb on the playground of the San Rogue Elementary School in Zamboanga City; the bomb was to have been detonated by cell phone. Analysis of the cell phone’s call activity included several calls to and from known Abu Sayyaf leaders. One call, placed seventeen hours before the café bombing, was made to Hisham Hussein, an Iraqi intelligence agent who was working as the second secretary at the Iraqi embassy in Manilla. A subsequent analysis of embassy phone records revealed that Hussein had been in regular contact with Abu Sayyaf leaders both before and after the Zamboanga City bombing. On February 14, 2003, Hisham Hussein was expelled from the Philippines for spy-related activities. According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, an Abu Sayyaf leader who planned the attack bragged on television a month after the bombing that Iraq had contacted him about conducting joint operations. Hamsinaji Sali, an Abu Sayyaf leader, has revealed that Iraq had provided the terrorist group with 1 million pesos and arms each year since 2000.

26) In October 2002 during a Senate floor speech after having voted to authorize an invasion of Iraq, Senator Hillary Clinton stated that Saddam had given “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.”

27) Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a senior al Qaeda associate who previously ran an al Qaeda affiliated training camp in Afghanistan, fled to Iraq shortly after the Taliban fell and received medical attention at a regime-supported hospital in Baghdad in 2002. Al Zarqawi didn’t check into just any medical facility; his leg was amputated and he was fitted for a prosthetic device at Baghdad’s Olympic Hospital which catered to Baathist elites, including many high-ranking regime officials. The hospital’s director was Saddam’s eldest son, Uday Hussein. During his convalescence, dozens of al Zarqawi associates converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there, coordinating the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network. After his recovery, Al Zarqawi maintained an operational alliance with Iraqi officials. He opened a terrorist camp in northern Iraq and arranged the October 2002 assassination of US diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan. As of Oct. 2002, al Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives, including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghdad. According to the CIA report called Iraqi Support for Terrorism, the Iraqi regime "certainly" had knowledge that Abu Musab al Zarqawi--described in the report as "a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner"--was operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq. Al Zarqawi had also been engaged in setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a U.S. occupation of the city, including IIS provision of secure operating bases and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible U.S. invasion. He has since been linked to numerous terror attacks against American and coalition troops in Iraq, as well as Iraqis working with the interim government, and is the official leader of "al Qaeda in Iraq."

28) According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former Iraqi intelligence deputy director, Faruq Hijazi, and senior al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri were at the meeting--the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claims that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9/11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.

29) According to documents unearthed in April 2003 in the Iraqi Intelligence headquarters by journalists Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star and Inigo Gilmore of the London Telegraph, Hussein's intelligence service wrote a 3-page memo—each marked “Top Secret and Urgent”—detailing coming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered by liquid paper that, when revealed, exposed a plan to increase cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to that memo, the IIS agreed to pay for "all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden." The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of "the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him." The document was passed along to the deputy director of Iraqi intelligence, with the recommendation that "the deputy director general may bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden.” Handwritten notes on the third page of the memo indicate that the envoy arrived on March 5, 1998, and stayed as a guest of the Iraqi regime at Baghdad’s Mansur Melia Hotel. Additional margin notes indicate that the meetings were extended by a week—for a total of sixteen days. The memo also warns against communicating in writing. Aside from the significance of confirming high-level friendly contacts between Iraq intelligence and al Qaeda officials, this memo sheds light on the great lengths to which the Iraqi intelligence went to keep this relationship secret.

30) In May 2003, Clinton-appointed Manhattan federal judge, Harold Baer, ordered Saddam Hussein, his ousted regime, Osama bin Laden, and others to pay $104 million in damages to the families of the 2,750 victims of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. He found “by evidence satisfactory to the court, that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.”

CONCLUSION:

Let's review the situation right before the war with Iraq:

--Iraq had engaged in numerous high-level, friendly contacts with al Qaeda dating back over a decade
--from 1996 to 2003 the Iraqi Intelligence service had focused its terrorist activity on Western interests, including the United States
--throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests
--Iraq was open to "enhancing bin Laden's operational capability"
--al Qaeda had made direct and specific requests for Iraqi assistance
--Iraq had provided training to al Qaeda
--Saddam Hussein had made a standing offer to Osama bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq.
--al Qaeda had demonstrated an "enduring interest" in WMD expertise from Iraq
--the Iraqi regime certainly knew that al Qaeda agents were operating in Baghdad and northern Iraq

From Saddam’s perspective the war with the US didn’t end with the signing of the ceasefire following Gulf War I. Unable to strike back at the US through conventional means, Saddam turned to international terrorism. In effect terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, became his weapons delivery system.

Al Qaeda is a full-time terrorist organization — it does not have the same pretensions as, say, Sinn Fein or Hamas, to be a part-time political party. Al Qaeda's time is fully devoted to planning and conducting terrorist attacks to reach its goals, a primary one of which is the murder of as many Americans as possible. Thus, if a country assists or works with al Qaeda in any way, it is cooperating in terrorism and directly threatening the US. All of the debate about the exact nature of this relationship is a usefull exercise, but we already know enough to know that the Iraq-al Qaeda nexus passed the "danger-to-America" threshold.

Any state cooperation with al Qaeda should be considered a grave threat to US security because a deadly synergy is created when a hostile state and non-state agents who have declared war on the US conspire. States have resources--including territory, finances, an international diplomatic presence, and trade--that non-state actors do not have. On the other hand, non-state actors are able to operate globally and can act largely undetected.

"Imagine for a moment that we had not gone to war in Iraq in March 2003. And that Washington, D.C., had been attacked using five pounds of Iraqi anthrax--a development that William Cohen, Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, said would "destroy at least half the population" of the city. Imagine, too, that Iraq had supplied the deadly substance to al Qaeda terrorists, the kind of collaboration a 1999 Congressional Research Service study called "likely" if Saddam were to attempt a strike inside the United States. That report, some readers may recall, also presented a scenario eerily similar to the September 11 attacks. Democrats and journalists used the report to suggest the Bush administration had done too little to prevent those attacks." (Stephen F. Hayes)

"Rather than speeches about a needless war to counter an exaggerated threat, we would almost certainly be hearing something like this: This administration had 12 separate reports that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al Qaeda. Yet it refused to act. This administration knew of numerous high-level meetings between Iraqi Intelligence and Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. Yet it refused to act. This administration had been told by the CIA that Iraqi Intelligence had become increasingly aggressive throughout 2002 in targeting U.S. interests. Yet it refused to act. This administration knew that Saddam Hussein had made Osama bin Laden a standing offer of safe haven. Yet it refused to act." (Stephen F. Hayes)

Fortunately, the Bush administration did act. And despite misreporting from the mainstream media and the demagoguery of war critics, the war was both necessary and justified. When any nation that is overtly hostile to America is developing WMD, has a history of using terrorists to attack US and western targets, and intelligence data give reason to believe that continued attacks against the US are imminent, the threshold of the United States' right to invoke a response based on anticipatory self-defense has clearly been passed.

Iraq War Rationale: A Giant Fraud?

2005-03-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

Claiming that the Iraq War was based on a fraudulent rationale has become a true believer's mantra for the war's opponents. Sure, some have said it all along, but there's just something about my most recent encounter with this political tenet of faith that's finally moved me to apply fingers to keyboard. It's the Independent's Washington correspondent Rupert Cornwell who just so matter-of-factly described the war justification as "a giant fraud" in a recent piece. To Cornwell and his like-minded allies the case is closed on this issue; it's long since graduated from theory to fact. Heck, it's now gospel.

A charge of fraud, of course, means that the Bush administration engaged in deliberate deception, trickery. The critics' self-assuredness notwithstanding, does this accusation by Cornwell, et al withstand scrutiny? I say no. The war's critics are the guilty ones, guilty of giant distortion, an attempt to rewrite history right under our noses. Here's my small contribution toward setting the record straight.

The Iraq Survey Group's final report, aka the Duelfer Report, confirms rather than contradicts the Bush Administration's integrity. If the government were intent on trickery and deceit, then the conclusive findings on Iraqi WMD would have conformed to the official position. Well, they don't. The report has all the look and feel of a process that really had discovery of fact as its intent. And the critics tacitly acknowledge this with their unquestioning respect for Mr. Duelfer and his team's report. David Kay, Mr. Duelfer's predecessor, directly nails this point down. As reported in the NY Times, Jan. 26, 2004, "Dr. Kay said he was convinced that the analysts were not pressed by the Bush administration to make certain their prewar intelligence reports conformed to a White House agenda on Iraq. 'All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on W.M.D.,' he said. 'Everyone believed that they had W.M.D.''The only comment I ever had from the president was to find the truth,' Dr. Kay said. 'I never got any pressure to find a certain outcome.'"

For the critics, the inability to locate large stockpiles of WMD and their full-scale production following the invasion amounts to an utter repudiation of the reasons given by the Bush Administration for going to war. Aside from the obvious problem of finding contraband when the criminals involved are given a six-month advanced notice of the raid, it should not surprise anyone to learn that the Hussein crime family did what any criminal operation does when the heat is applied: You lay low, you hide the goods, you keep your operation going as much as you can, positioning yourself for the day when you can hit the accelerator again. You don't risk full-scale production under such circumstances, but you get yourself situated so that you can rev it up when the time comes.

The Duelfer Report bears this out:
• Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.
• He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.
• He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.
• And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions. (WSJ)

Richard Spertzel, a former U.N. biological weapons specialist, and member of Duelfer's team further confirms that the Hussein WMD operation was merely in "covert mode" and hadn't magically disappeared as the critics imagine: "While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi
Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale production of chemical nerve agents, sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, ricin, aflatoxin, and other unspecified biological agents." Regarding the Duelfer Report's disclosure of plans to produce and weaponize nitrogen mustard in rifle grenades and to bottle sarin and sulfur mustard in perfume sprayers and medicine bottles for shipment to the U.S. and Europe, Spertzel commented: "Are we to believe this plan existed because they liked us? Or did they wish to do us harm? The major threat posed by Iraq, in my opinion, was the support it gave to terrorists in general, and its own terrorist activity."

David Kay's findings in Iraq provide additional substantiation:
• A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing chemical and biological weapons research.
• A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of biological weapons agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
• Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which could be used to produce biological weapons.
• New research on biological weapons-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin which were not declared to the UN.
• Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation.

David Kay also commented: "In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence--hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use--are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts."

The truth is, the case for war didn't ride on finding mass quantities of WMD. To substantiate this, let's go to the source, the resolution that our elected representatives voted on to authorize the Iraq War: The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. (Recall that this resolution passed by overwhelming majorities in both Senate, 77-23, and House, 296-133, substantially wider margins than the 1991 resolution to expel Iraq from Kuwait.) This resolution contains 23 "whereas" statements to justify the use of force against Iraq. Combined, they lay out the definitive rationale behind this decision. In all, 8 distinct reasons for the war emerge, five "negative" and three "positive." The negative reasons in order of frequency are:

WMD: 10 mentions
TERRORISM: 10
CEASE-FIRE VIOLATIONS: 7
AGGRESSION: 4
REPRESSION: 3

The positive reasons:

RESTORE SECURITY: 6
PROMOTE DEMOCRACY: 1
ENFORCE RESOLUTIONS: 1

Even a casual reading of the resolution leaves no doubt that the prime mover behind the war was concern over the deadly mix of three potent ingredients: An aggressive outlaw regime that is developing WMD and sponsoring international terror must be stopped. But concern for Saddam's repressed people, their need for liberation and democracy, his history of aggression toward his neighbors, and the need to enforce the UN's fistful of sanctions regarding Iraq were also clearly in view. Did our failure to discover large quantities of WMD after invasion mean that he was no longer a sponsor of international terrorism or in defiant violation of every term of the 1991 ceasefire agreement? Of course not. Does this failure lead to the conclusion that Saddam had sworn off the development and use of WMD? Clearly not. Just the opposite was discovered to be true. Did it mean that the danger posed by a mix of outlaw regime, WMD and terrorism was chimeric? Ridiculous.

If anything the danger had increased because Saddam had learned from his earlier mistakes and was now a more cunning opponent, more adept at subterfuge and stealth development techniques. We now know that Saddam's generals were angry at him for jumping the gun with the invasion of Kuwait before they had their nuclear arsenal ready. Obviously if they'd had their nukes in place, it would have been nearly impossible to stop Saddam's mad designs to take over the region, with all its oil and the wealth and power that conveys--a truly nightmarish scenario. Mahdi Obeidi, the Iraqi nuclear program chief, has recently released a book, "The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind." He states: "Iraq's nuclear weapons program was on the threshold of success before the 1991 invasion of Kuwait." Without Gulf War I, we'd be living that nightmare right now. And, we'd be on the verge of entering that nightmare if the current Bush administration had not taken military action. Whether under Saddam or his sons, inaction would have led to the removal of sanctions, the resumption of WMD programs, including production, and at the time of their choosing having learned from their 1991 mistake, the re-launch of their power play for the Middle East. Mahdi Obeidi again: "Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the [nuclear] program if necessary. And there is no question that we could have done so very quickly. In the late 1980's, we put together the most efficient covert nuclear program the world has ever seen. In about three years, we gained the ability to enrich uranium and nearly become a nuclear threat; we built an effective centrifuge from scratch, even though we started with no knowledge of centrifuge technology. Had Saddam Hussein ordered it and the world looked the other way, we might have shaved months if not years off our previous efforts."

Ok, so even if one grants that the war was justified, the WMD intelligence was flawed and therefore the Bush Administration is still guilty of a giant fraud--right? Wrong, that's called amnesia. Every legitimate intelligence agency in the world, including the French, thought Iraq had WMD's and that, in the hands of a madman, they posed a threat to the peace and security of the region and world. The United Nations, the intelligence services of our allies, democratic senators on the Intelligence Committee, members of the Clinton administration were all in agreement. Certainly there was a presumption of guilt at work here, but that was clearly justified given Saddam's megalomaniacal history of aggression, deceit and defiance.

For those still suffering from selective Iraqi amnesia, a brief trip down memory lane:

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." -- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"The hard fact is that so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. . . . Heavy as they are, the costs of inaction must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them." -- President Clinton, December 16, 1998

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." -- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- Sen. John F. Kerry, Oct. 9, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." -- John Edwards October 10, 2002

"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." -- Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002

"The security of America is under threat from people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical and biological weapons." -- French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, November 12, 2002

"There is a problem: the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq. The international community is right to be disturbed by this situation, and it's right in having decided Iraq should be disarmed." -- Jacques Chirac, February 16, 2003

"Everyone believed that they had W.M.D." -- Head of Iraqi Survey Group, Dr. David Kay, January, 2004

Perhaps the critics of the war want to believe that this whole Iraqi WMD thing was a giant fraud perpetrated by a giant, worldwide conspiracy.

No, to say that the Iraq War was based on a giant fraud is a giant distortion. It was the right war, the right place, the...and long overdue.

Tweaking Happiness

2005-03-01T12:14:00.000-08:00

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every moment with grace, kindness, honor and gratitude.

(my tweaked version of Denis Waitley's memorable quote)

Michael Moore Minutemen Watch

2005-02-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy'. They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win."

--Michael Moore, April 14th, 2004

The Minutemen Mr. Moore refers to were, of course, the civilian militia of the American war of independence. Just as well known is the fact that Moore's Iraqi Minutemen have been blasting, maiming and beheading their way across Iraq since the summer of '03.

Well, Mr. Moore's Iraqi Minutemen have struck again. Today, they blasted two mosques and a Shiite religious ceremony commemorating the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson. In one case, a courageous minuteman blew himself up inside a mosque during Friday prayers in Baghdad--the body count currently stands at 31.
---------------------------
Feb 19, 2005 update

Michael Moore's Minutemen had another big day spreading mayhem. At last count there have been eight new suicide bombings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. Today's carnage included a minuteman who walked into a tent outside the Fatah Pasha mosque in western Baghdad and blew himself up, killing at least three people and injuring 10. About 50 people were inside the tent attending a funeral for some of the minutemen's previous victims. Another minuteman blew himself up on a public bus in Kadhimiya, killing one child and six adults, and wounding a dozen more. An additional Moore minuteman blew himself up close to the Nada Mosque in Kadhimiya, killing 7, and injuring 55. A few courageous minutemen also holed themselves up in a Baghdad building and opened fire on a funeral procession in which mourners carried coffins of some of those killed by the minutemen on Friday in a bombing at the capital's al-Khadimain mosque. All told, a truly stellar day for Michael Moore's intrepid Minutemen.
---------------------------
March 10, 2005 update

Chalk up another courageous attack by Michael Moore's Minutemen. Paying the ultimate sacrifice for his noble cause, today's featured minuteman carried out a suicide bombing at a funeral procession in the al-Ta'meen district of Mosul in an open space near the Shahedayein Mosque. The funeral was for Hashim Mahmoud al-Aaraji, a professor at a Mosul University. "As we were inside the mosque, we saw a ball of fire and heard a huge explosion," Tahir Abdullah Sultan, 45, told The Associated Press. "After that blood and pieces of flesh were scattered around the place." The body count currently stands at 46.

Now repeat after Michael and me: "The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists'...."

Confessions of a Sometimes-Very-Liberal Moderate-Conservative

2005-02-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

If you're anything like me, you're tired of the hyper-partisan nature of so much of the political debate and commentary in this country (U.S.). It's Air America vs. Rush, Sean, O'Reilly & co. For example, one side in America's debate on Iraq only wants to talk of imperialism, Abu Graib, blood for oil, lack of UN support, civilian casualties, insurgents, occupation and lack of WMD, while the other side will only speak of supporting our troops, liberation, mass graves, gassing Kurds, torture victims, and Sadam's support for terrorism and pursuit of WMD. Is there anyone out there who has the objectivity and integrity to admit that ALL of these issues contain some merit? And it's the same situation with just about any other contentious issue you want to mention.

I am convinced that all people naturally engage in self-brainwashing. We do this by gravitating, in many cases exclusively, toward people and opinions with which we agree. In my experience, most people only read and listen on a regular basis to opinions that support their positions, to those who are their ideological allies. The only way I know to avoid this is to be aware of the natural tendency and to take overt steps to mitigate it. I am constantly on guard to avoid this in my own life; I'm sure that I'm only partly successful. I'd propose the following as key indicators of a more severe self-brainwashing problem: 1) Personal positions are in lock-step with a certain political party, or school of thought; 2) Inability to give credit when it is due to someone we oppose (Ask yourself: Can I give both Clinton and G.W. Bush credit for anything accomplished in their presidencies?); or 3) Advocation of extreme positions (e.g., "liberals hate America," or "Bush is another Hitler"). If I find myself edging toward any of these conditions, and I do at times, I know that I'm not getting a balanced diet intellectually.

Below is a rather quick sketch of where I currently come down on many major issues of our day. I'd be the first to admit that I'm not equally well-informed on all of the issues raised and that I have plenty to learn. And unlike so much of what passes for political dialogue in this country, I'm genuinely willing to listen to opposing points of view and to give them honest consideration. You'll find that I'm quite a mix of liberal, moderate and conservative. Some people would call me confused; I prefer to think of it as independent-minded. No one owns my vote. I try to evaluate each election, each issue on its own merits. I think that if a person completely agrees with an established party line they are probably not thinking for themselves.

Abortion: far-fetched to think that an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is murder, but it is also absurd to suggest that a fetus is just a mass of tissue and not a human life; think large percentage of abortion is convenience-killing of the powerless, but don’t think criminalization is the right approach to reducing abortion rates; support UN-sponsored population control programs; favor parental notification, late term and partial birth abortion restrictions

Campaign finance reform: money is ruining our democracy; get money out of politics altogether by limiting campaigns to public financing only

Church & State: the state should maintain strict neutrality on religious matters and should be careful not to show any kind of favoritism or inclination for any particular organized religion, religious belief system, or theology; favor removal of “In God we trust” from money, “under God” from pledge as these vestiges indicate bias toward traditional theistic systems over non-theistic; oppose school-sponsored prayer in public schools

Civil justice policy: though consumer rights need protection, we desperately need to rein in our overly litigious society and a system that has swung too far in favor of the trial lawyers, enabling them to maintain their unconscionable fees and gamesmanship (e.g., venue-shopping, class action lawsuits where the plaintiffs receive discount coupons, the lawyers millions)

Civil rights: full support for Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964/65 and favor aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws; all forms of racial prejudice are immoral and should be vigorously opposed; oppose affirmative action because it is discrimination based on race, divisive and stigmatizing; race neutrality is much more appropriate for targeting truly underprivileged students, which states and schools claim is their real goal; many poor whites and Asians are overlooked by affirmative action policies that assume that every black and Latino is from a ghetto; Bill Cosby is right, Jesse Jackson & NAACP are wrong: minorities will accomplish much more by focusing on the issues of crime, teenage pregnancy, poor parenting, and anti-intellectualism-induced poor academic performance in their own community rather than racial victimhood

Crime & punishment: the death penalty is the only just penalty for some crimes, but should require DNA evidence to assure the innocent aren’t executed; believe tougher sentencing, sentencing guidelines, and 3-strikes laws are a significant factor in the steadily decreasing crime rates over the last decade, but modify 3-strikes laws so that the final strike must be a more serious crime; decriminalize, regulate and tax pot, but retain criminalization of harder drugs, e.g. crack cocaine; emphasize treatment over law enforcement, but still pursue active interdiction efforts

Diversity: is part of what makes America strong & vibrant and should be encouraged and welcomed; should modify our election system in order to assist in the creation of viable new political parties which will create a better democracy than our 2-party system

Economic policy: government should live within its means; favor balanced budgets, tight spending restraints, low taxes, tax cuts to stimulate economic activity during recessions; believe in economic freedom through a free-market economy, but believe that it must be regulated to avoid abuses; finding the correct amount of regulation is, of course, the great challenge, but favor as little as possible; favor market-based, private solutions whenever possible, such as with medical insurance, and private accounts within Social Security; socialism, while good in theory is terrible in practice: 1) concentrates too much power in the central government inevitably leading to abuse and corruption; 2) limits economic freedom in a way that amounts to economic dictatorship

Education: favor school choice: bringing marketplace competition to our monopolistic public school system is best hope for truly reforming our schools and helping poor families trapped in bad districts; favor abstinence as primary emphasis in sex education; favor zero tolerance policies, though common sense has sometimes been lacking in their implementation

Energy policy: severe crisis is coming due to finite supply of fossil fuels and ever-increasing demand; therefore need a Manhattan Project approach in terms of focus, urgency and resources in order to transition to a non-fossil fuel economy; pursuing every last drop of oil and coal, at great cost to the environment, is not the answer; don’t favor nuclear energy due to the waste disposal problems and the role nuclear power technology is playing in the proliferation of nuclear weaponry; favor substantial tax credits to encourage the use and development of alternative energy sources

Environmental policy: the earth is our mother and precious home and should be cherished and cared for with an attitude of familial love; favor tough environmental policies and enforcement, but policies must be sensible and include consideration of economic impact and effect on private property rights

Foreign policy: should close/pull back most, if not all, of our foreign-based troops and bases; UN is good in its conception and should be supported; since UN is an institution in its infancy it should be given a chance to come of age and fulfill its commendable founding mandate; should pursue multilateral approaches to international crises whenever possible and participate in peacekeeping missions; a posture of peace through strength is necessary in a dangerous world and preemptive action with or without UN approval may be necessary when vital national interests are at stake; intelligence services: more critical than ever; should be well-funded and staunchly supported, but should not be given a blank check; must be monitored to assure that our most basic ideals aren’t being contradicted by it actions; oppose use of torture and regime change operations

Gay rights: homosexuality isn’t evil or sinful; it is a normal, though minority, human orientation—somewhat like left-handedness—and as such should not be discriminated against; current antipathy owes to the all too common human prejudice toward any human condition that is viewed as odd or different (left-handed children used to be shamed/coerced into using their right hands); should have full access to all rights and privileges afforded the married, including marriage itself, a fundamental civil right

Gun control: believe the right to bear arms is a basic right, but favor tight restrictions on gun ownership, including mandatory training & testing, just as is done with motor vehicles and obtaining a driver’s license

Immigration policy: allowing illegals to live and prosper in this country is grossly unfair to those who play by the rules, often by waiting years to gain entry and citizenship; favor elimination of incentives/rewards for illegals such as in-state tuition, voting rights, automatic citizenship for children of illegals born in this country, driver’s licenses, and welfare; favor punishing businesses that hire illegals; favor modifying immigration laws to better match industry's demand for cheap unskilled labor with the supply of willing immigrant workers

Judicial policy: favor judicial restraint; should seek to be true to the original intent of the Constitution; if we start down the road of rulings based on implications of implications within the Constitution (as in Roe v. Wade where the right to an abortion is an implication of another implication, the right to privacy), we can justify virtually anything, are in effect legislating from the bench thereby cutting short the democratic process, and have effectively destroyed the integrity of our founding document

Labor policy: unions, though vital generations back, are largely a detriment now by 1) forcing compensation packages that aren’t realistic in our new era of global competition, and 2) reducing productivity by discouraging workers from performing tasks that are additional to their contract; Minimum wage laws: hurt those they purport to help by causing loss of entry-level jobs, and disproportionately overburdening small businesses which create most new jobs and employ the majority of minimum wage employees

Right-to-die: favor wholeheartedly; we should have choice to end our own life on our own terms if in terminal condition with no quality of life remaining

Role of government: government's primary role is to provide for the common defense and the rule of law; opposed to the creation of a "nanny state" which sacrifices freedom for the sake of security; opposed to ever-expanding, increasingly powerful & intrusive government; Jefferson said it best: “that government which governs least, governs best”

Stem cell research: favor pursuing the many potential therapies that might come from this research, including the use of embryonic stem cells

Trade policy: support free trade which opens markets and promotes economic development for all parties involved; protectionism is self-defeating and, in the end, hurts all parties involved; favor normal trade relations with China

Welfare policy: should only be temporary and oriented toward mainstreaming people back into the working world; poorly designed social welfare programs can cause more harm than good by undercutting initiative, self-respect and personal responsibility, and by subsidizing dysfunctional behavior

Women’s rights: favor full access to and equal compensation for women in all societal arenas; believe women should be freed from all stereotypical roles in their life pursuits; think women have been the most held-back and abused portion of the human family throughout the overall course of history, and that the lack of their full and equal contribution until very modern times has greatly retarded the progress of humankind

Deconversion: Why I Left Christianity

2005-02-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

I trace the beginnings of my adult spiritual journey to a time over 30 years ago when, as a young teen, I began to take interest in the great questions in life and was frequently distracted by a desire to understand how I fit into the big picture. Living near the beach, I often took advantage of the opportunity to sit and contemplate on the shores of Huntington Beach, California. I felt a palpable sense of peace and belonging at the ocean and I often would retreat there for solace during times of distress or confusion. My answers to life’s great questions remained ill defined at this point in my life, but my own native religion was nature-centered and non-theistic.

In my later teen years, however, I came under the influence of several enthusiastic Christian friends. At first, I was very resistant to the Gospel message and to some of the content of the Bible. But over time, my attraction to the welcoming fellowship, the high moral standards, the reassuring divine promises, and the ready supply of answers to my deepest questions, overcame my misgivings. I accepted Jesus, in standard Evangelical Christian style, and embarked on a 20-year sojourn in the world of contemporary American Christianity.

From the beginning, my experience of Christianity was focused around an intense interest in experiencing personal communion with God, understanding the Bible, and living a life of service. Over the years, this resulted in innumerable hours spent in private prayer and worship, contemplative retreats into mountain or desert, two college degrees focused on Biblical studies, and ministry pursuits that included a youth pastorship, home bible study fellowships, hospital visitation, street witnessing, and soup kitchen work just to name a few.

Christianity was always an uncomfortable fit however. Unseen by most of my closest Christian friends was a fierce inner struggle to make sense of the full Biblical message and to live a life of integrity consistent with that message. Gradually, serious misgivings about the Bible mounted. Rather than alleviate my doubts, the more I learned about the Bible, the more I encountered intractable problems on every hand. Tension and struggle eventually reached such an extreme that I knew something had to give, yet I felt trapped. Certainly, I told myself, something was wrong with me or my apprehension of the faith. By definition, I thought, nothing could be wrong with Christianity or the Bible itself.

A watershed moment arrived one day when a Christian friend of mine casually suggested that all one had to do was place any stumbling stone on the shelf and just continue along the path trusting that, in the end, God would take care of everything, including any doubts. The advice was a well-intentioned bit of standard Christian counsel; the timing however was all significant. My immediate response was to ask what should be done if those stumbling stones should become so numerous and heavy that the shelf were to break. The point was lost on my friend, but it was a self-revelatory moment for me. I was at that breaking point. Cognitive dissonance had built to a point of crisis and I could no longer take refuge in pious evasion. At that moment I decided that none of my assumptions were beyond reappraisal, that I would rethink everything and follow the truth wherever it led, no matter the cost.

The process was nothing short of traumatic. Not to mention lonely. But in the end, I re-emerged wiser and with new focus, and a sense of peace that I had not known for a long time. I was also no longer a Christian.

Through it all I seem to have come full circle. Once again my religion is nature-centered and non-theistic (at least in the traditional sense). Rather than relying on an invisible, imaginary deity, looking for a savior from the beyond to rescue me, I am now living life to the fullest, here and now, in this marvelous body, on this glorious planet, alive to all the wonders that surround me.

Most basically, I broke from Christianity because I am convinced that it promotes more error than truth, more harm than good. The specific reasons fall into two general categories: bad ideas and false claims.

Bad Ideas

Because old sacred texts cannot evolve, religions that rely on them keep the people that read them and swear by them, living in the mindset of the times they were written. This creates the dual problem of perpetuating primitive or even barbaric thinking, and impeding progress. Over the last 2000 years, Christianity has been guilty of both offenses.

1) Accepting the bible as inspired revelation from God requires one to embrace as moral acts the barbarisms which ancient Israel committed against their neighbors—including the brutal massacre of men, women, children and nursing babies--at the explicit mandate of God: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: …attack Amalek…kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child….” (1Sam. 15: 2-3) No matter what kind of rationalization is used by the believer, the chilling fact must be faced that because of Christianity one is compelled to justify genocide.

One must also accept as ethical, the divine pronouncement that a master could beat his slave within an inch of his/her life and, as long as the slave didn't die, the master would suffer no penalty. The divine justification given for this ruling: the slave is the master's property! (Exodus 21:21) Pro-slavery advocates in our own country used OT passages such as this one to defend their practices during the debates that raged in the 19th century.

2) Hell: The Old Testament knows nothing of a fiery underworld place of never-ending afterlife torment. This concept grew in popularity during the great cultural intermixing that occurred during the intertestamental period. Active volcanoes, spewing molten lava and smoke from the depths of the earth, were thought by the ancients to lend credence to this notion. Not surprisingly, intertestamental Jewish theologians contacted and adopted this idea of hellfire. So did Jesus and the writers of the New Testament. This mere accident of history still saddles us today, some 2,000 years later, with the idea of a divine torture chamber, one of the most abhorrent, sadistic concepts ever conceived.

The concept of Hell is actually so toxic that few modern day Christians really believe it. Most believers, out of necessity, employ various kinds of coping mechanisms in an attempt to live a consistent Christian life with Hell as part of their belief system. These coping mechanisms typically take the form of avoidance—the concept of Hell is simply put out of mind—or re-definition—Hell is watered down to be a metaphor for a more palatable concept like "separation from God."

3) Anthropomorphic deity: Egocentrism is a hallmark feature of immaturity. Mankind in its childhood supposed itself and its world to be the literal center of the universe. All heavenly bodies were thought to revolve around the earth. The sun existed to give light to the day, the stars and moon, light at night (Genesis 1). Every tribe thought that its central place was the center of the world; not surprisingly, the Jews asserted this honor for Jerusalem. Cut from the same cloth is the notion that the ultimate mystery of the universe and ground of all being is a person just like us. "Men create gods after their own image...." (Aristotle) Just as mankind has outgrown the notion of an earth-centered universe, the time is long overdue to put off this childish notion of a “great parent in the sky.”

4) The denigration of women—seen both in overt statements, such as "it is a shame for a woman to speak in church," and in the complete lockout of women from any positions of leadership—is clear testimony to bias on the part of the Bible's all-male authors. Human bias of this sort is inconsistent with the notion of divinely inspired scripture, but is exactly what one would expect from male religious leaders in the ancient world.

5) Human sacrifice was commonplace among ancient peoples (e.g., Aztecs, Incas, early Greeks & Romans, some Middle Eastern tribes, early Chinese & Japanese). Unfortunately Christianity, through its central idea of the sacrificial death of Christ for the sin of the world, has perpetuated this dreadful concept. Unadorned by its social acceptance, developed theology and other trappings, Christianity at its core is a primitive religion based on appeasing an angry, invisible deity through human sacrifice.

6) Divine-human relationship: Mirroring the authoritarian political structures of the time, Judeo-Christian patterns of worship/prayer follow from a primitive view of God as despot to be placated, appeased and flattered. The similar master-slave depiction of the divine-human relationship, featured prominently in the Bible, is equally degrading and outmoded.

7) In Christianity, this earth is a temporary stage that God will soon destroy, this life a brief passageway to a world beyond death. These sentiments may have made life more bearable to the downtrodden Jews of the first century who despaired of life under foreign domination, and who despised a world wracked with war, famine and injustice, where life was often short and cheap. But this emphasis upon the afterlife and the denigration of life in this world is wrong and perverse in its effects. At its very least, it prevents the full participation in and embracing of life in this world with all of its joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures. There is also the tendency to create a mindset that discourages improving life here and now. Sure the Bible exhorts one to help a neighbor in need, but no attempt is made to correct structural evil because this world is considered beyond hope. From a strictly biblical point of view, working for the long-term betterment of mankind would make as much sense as trying to establish a social program aboard the sinking Titanic. The only true hope in Christianity involves escape from this doomed world and resides in a salvation process wherein one is placed on god's salvage list for those to be spared when the current world is incinerated.

This belief also tends to inhibit the progress of science and the natural curiosity that motivates it. Consider this revealing quote from St. Ambrose (a 4th century church father): "To discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help us in our hope of the life to come." St. Ambrose was not unique or unusual in his sentiments—biblical theology directly breeds this kind of value system. Christians who hold to different priorities only come to do so when they begin to think independently and/or come in contact with non-Christian influences.

8) Christianity demands an extreme, unrealistic ethic. In large part this is due to the emergency-mode nature of the NT outlook; that is, one must live as if the world were coming to an end at any moment (e.g., 1Cor. 7:29-31). This sense of emergency created by an impending apocalypse is further intensified by the "high stakes" involved: the threat of being sentenced to eternal torment and losing eternal bliss. If the choices made in this lifetime really do determine an eternity of either torment or bliss, then saving oneself and as many others as possible isn't just the pre-eminent concern, it is life's only concern. If taken seriously, this perspective renders any kind of normal life impossible, and promotes crippling anxiety and guilt.

The extreme nature of the NT ethic can also be seen in Jesus' unqualified prohibition against divorce (Mark 10: 11-2). This simply does not work in the real world—and everyone knows it. The fact that exceptions for unfaithfulness (Mat. 5:32) or abandonment (1Cor. 7:15) had to be added later by apostolic writers reveals the untenable nature of Jesus' blanket proscription. Witness also the Catholic Church and its annulment practice, or many Protestant pastors who, through theological artifice, attempt to stretch the stated divorce exceptions to deal with life's inevitable tough cases.

9) Biblical inerrancy: the concept, at its base, arises to answer that human longing for a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. But certainty in this world is not possible, and probably not desirable: not possible because life in this world, if it is anything, is ever-changing and unpredictable; not desirable because the adventure of living is in great measure the challenge of forging a meaningful life in an ever-changing world where the end result of one’s efforts cannot be known. Those who seek the certainty of inerrant revelation are both demanding a guarantee on life which doesn't exist and short-changing the life that they have been given.

10) Revealed religion--that is, religion built upon revelation from god—carries within it a terrible, built-in danger. Followers of revealed religion believe that they possess the final, ultimate truth of god, which leads to the tendency to impose that "truth" on others, justified by the belief that they are acting according to divine mandate. To compound the problem, the NT commonly refers to unbelievers in the most disdainful manner—“wicked evildoers,” ”unholy,” “of the darkness,” “lawless,” “sinners,” “of the devil,” “under the wrath of God,” “damned,” bound for hell, and “dead,” just to name a few. The result is a truly dangerous mix which has the potential to go far beyond mere judgmental attitudes, intolerance and divisiveness. One could predict that a revealed religion of this nature would inevitably lead to all manner of abuse: everything from witch hunts to wars and inquisitions. History has more than born out this prediction. In modern times, this same unholy cocktail of incendiary ideas—inherited in part from Christian theology—currently drives the wave of religious-inspired terrorism that sweeps our world. "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." (Blaise Pascal) "Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." (Mark Twain)

11) Faith is a trusting commitment not substantiated by reasoned proof. To make the ultimate life commitment required by the Christian salvation experience, without reasoned consideration of the issues and ramifications, is foolhardy and dangerous. This is the means by which millions become trapped within absurd cults, sometimes with lethal consequences. What may start with an admonition to "just let your heart guide you" may end with a final taste of funny Kool-Aid.

False claims

1) The New Testament's claim that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled many Old Testament messianic prophecies doesn't withstand scrutiny. Virtually every example of fulfilled prophecy exhibits abuse of the original OT context or the facts.

Matthew's 14-generation scheme (a prophetic scheme of sorts) in Mt.1, whereby he attempts to show how Jesus is the grand culmination of OT salvation history, is a classic example: he left out a handful of generations in order to make it fit.

Mt.2:18—the NT writer contends that Herod's decree to kill the male children at Bethlehem fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) which refers to "Rachel weeping for her children." Jeremiah however is addressing the problem of Jewish dispersion caused by Babylonian captivity. The "children" referred to are obviously the Jewish people, the descendants of Rachel, and they were neither the victims of a massacre, nor even dead, for they, as Jeremiah stated, would "…come back from the land of the enemy (Jer.31:17)." Jer.31:15 has everything to do with the Babylonian captivity and nothing to do with Herod killing children at Bethlehem. Only by doing violence to this passage can Mt.2:18 assert prophetic fulfillment.

Mt.21:4-5—here the NT writer commits two fouls in first misinterpreting Zech.9:9 and then manipulating the Jesus story in order to match his misunderstanding. He misunderstood the obvious parallelism of the OT passage to mean that both a donkey and a foal were being ridden at the same time, instead of the donkey and foal being parallel references to the same animal (a very common Hebrew literary device). Then he, unlike either of the other two gospel writers who retold this story, portrays Jesus stunt-riding on both animals simultaneously. At best this is an embarrassment; it certainly isn't divinely inspired predictive prophecy.

In historical context, the NT writers were employing the same technique used by their contemporaries at Qumran (the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) who likewise wrested numerous OT passages from their context in order to use them as prophetic credentials for their leader, the "Teacher of Righteousness."

2) In a religious environment where predictions about the end of the world were common, Jesus also explicitly promised to return to his contemporary generation, an event which he said would usher in the end of the world (Mat. 10:23; 16:27-8; 24:22; Mark 9:1; 13:20, 30; Luke 18:8; 21:32). The NT writers repeatedly expressed their belief in this promised Second Coming to their generation (Rom. 13:11-2; 16:20; 1Cor. 7:29-31; 15:51f; 2Cor. 10:11; Phil. 4:5; 1Thes. 1:10; 4:15-7; Heb. 9:26; 10:37; Jas. 5:8-9; 1Pet. 1:6; 4:7; 1John 2:18; Rev 1:1, 3; 22:30). When it became apparent in the latter half of the first century that this prophecy had failed, the apostles, rather than admit that they or Jesus had been mistaken, attempted to salvage the situation by resort to theological spin doctoring (e.g. 2Pet 3). These efforts at damage control remind one of what religious groups throughout the ages have done when prophecy fails. Rather than learn the lesson that failure attempts to teach and rethink basic assumptions, the sacrosanct assumptions are shielded from all true reappraisal and the prophecy is salvaged through the use of spiritual fulfillment notions or other creative theological recasting.

3) NT miracles: These were very superstitious times wherein people believed that miraculous events occurred routinely. Mankind was only beginning to mature out of its childhood at this stage in history, and many processes in nature were still "explained" by resort to supernatural explanations. The miraculous was also frequently used to adorn momentous occurrences and revered individuals. The writings of both Jewish and Roman historians attest to this practice. Suetonius, a Roman historian, claimed that the Roman Senate witnessed Augustus Caesar ascend into heaven. Both Suetonius and Tacitus, another Roman historian, assert that the emperor Vespasian healed a blind man by putting saliva on his eyes, and a crippled man by touching him—miraculous events which purportedly were witnessed by many people. Josephus, a Jewish historian, claimed that during the time of the First Jewish War (with Rome) a heifer being led to the temple altar gave birth to a lamb, that the temple gate, which took some 20 men to open and close, opened of its own accord one night, and that chariots and soldiers were seen in the clouds around Jerusalem. He further states that the latter miracle was seen by too many people to doubt it.

Evidence from within the NT, and from the extra-biblical Jesus tales that followed, reveal a myth-making process that began with the earliest apologists (the first disciples) trying to make the case for Jesus as Messiah. As the NT repeatedly affirms, the "Jews seek [miraculous] signs"—and that is exactly what the NT writers gave them. Yet close inspection of the parallel miracle stories they wrote reveals evidence of growth and accretion. Just like the proverbial fish story, the miracle story has a tendency over time to become more miraculous. The non-canonical stories that followed grew ever more fantastic and attempted to fill in the gaps left by the NT accounts, such as miracle stories from Jesus' childhood. But despite the fact that the church has attempted to distance itself from these later stories, they form a continuous line of tradition with the officially sanctioned tales. There is a very great difference between accepting assertions about impossible events made by a few people in superstitious times two thousand years ago, with no corroborating evidence, and accepting the results of modern experiments repeated hundreds of thousands of times under rigorous controls, always with the same results.

4) Virtually every major aspect of NT theology and the story of Jesus Christ can be found "off-the-shelf" in the religious milieu of the day. This reality inflicts irreparable damage to the claim that Christianity is a unique religion that was divinely revealed in the first century.

The early Christians behaved like every other group in every other era -- they adopted and adapted ideas from the culture around them. What Paul, Mark, John, and the other early biblical writers had wasn't on their tables, it was in their heads. What they had were the same general notions of divinity, cosmology and humanity, and how those things worked together, that everyone had in their time. They knew how gods worked, so when they wrote about Jesus, they made sure he worked like a god. Not only did Jesus do the same miracles the earlier pagan gods did, but the gospel stories of His miracles are told using the old pagan formula of an “aretalogy,” listing the miracles and great deeds of the god. Jesus is depicted as the son of god who suffered, died, and was reborn. But He wasn't the first son of god who suffered, died, and was reborn. He brought salvation, but He wasn't the first god to do that either. His mother was a virgin; he wasn't the first god there either. It's the same with miracles, baptism, the Eucharist, heaven, hell, prophecy, eternal life; the list goes on and on. The pagans had them all, and generations before Jesus.

Like Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Mithras and many others, Jesus was a god, shaped like a man, walking, talking, eating, but still having magic god powers. Like the other pagan god-men, Jesus was a subordinate god, son of the great universal god, miraculously conceived in a mortal woman, living for a while on earth rather than in heaven, helping people. Jesus was not a xerox copy of one particular pagan god. Jesus was new in the same way the first Honda Accord was a new car. But the Accord wasn't the first car. The Accord was a new arrangement of old ideas, some new, but mostly old. So was Jesus.

5) The Resurrection: Five reasons why rational people cannot believe the New Testament accounts: (1) Resurrected savior-gods were common-place in the pagan religions that flourished before, during, and after the time Jesus of Nazareth lived; (2) Typical of very superstitious times, residents of 1st century Palestine were prone to believe resurrection stories (see, for example, Mt.14:1; 27:52-3); (3) The claim that a dead man was restored to life is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof; (4) The only biblical proof in support of the resurrection claim is hearsay in nature; and (5) The NT accounts of the resurrection are both contradictory and incredible.

6) Biblical inerrancy: The NT writers of 2Peter and Jude were guilty of serious errors that reveal the all too human, very fallible nature of their enterprise. Both Peter and Jude placed heavy theological weight upon an intertestamental tale about angels during the time of Noah who had intercourse with women resulting in evil, giant offspring (2Pet 2:4; Jude 6). To aid in combating enemies of the church, Peter and Jude both used this tale as a key, authoritative example of divine judgment against wrongdoers. It is plain by their usage of it that, in their estimation, these sinful angels were as historic and authentic, and the lessons to be learned as revelatory as, say, the story of Israel in the wilderness. The chief intertestamental source of this tale, IEnoch, was quoted as inspired, holy writ by Jude (Jude 14-5). Jude also mistakenly believed that the ancient, antediluvian Enoch actually wrote IEnoch (Jude 14). Peter, one of the apostolic leaders, conferred the ultimate seal of approval by incorporating almost all of Jude's letter into his second epistle.

These problems cannot be dismissed as incidental or unimportant; they strike at the heart of Christianity’s credibility. Regarding IEnoch, it is plain that Jude didn’t understand the true nature of the very source materials upon which he so heavily relied. He naively placed his full trust in this very contrived, highly fanciful writing which scholarship universally agrees was produced in the two centuries preceding the time of Jesus. Most modern-day Christians, if they only knew, would be horrified to read IEnoch and to realize that this was the type of material from which the NT writers derived their inspiration. Peter, a leading apostolic writer, is thus found engaging in fundamental theological reasoning about God and his character from a tradition which is so grossly mythological, a story which is so obviously fictional, that his reliability on spiritual matters must be seriously questioned. Thankfully, examples such as this one exist wherein the sincere seeker of truth can sweep back the curtain of mystery that surrounds the production of the NT and gain a behind-the-scenes look at how the NT writers worked and from what sources their ideas actually derive. If, when we are able to put them to the test, the apostolic writers are found to be untrustworthy, why should they be trusted on matters that cannot be so readily scrutinized critically?