Lunatic Government Occupies Airports

America, Government, Terrorism

“[O]fficials keep telling the believing ‘Boobus Americanus’ that safety lies in pretending everyone is equally weighted in his propensity to blow up an airplane. If we were on the lookout for an abortion clinic saboteur, would we be patting down Islamists or Southern Baptist survivalists? In every other whodunit, behavioral scientists attempt to construct a criminal profile of the suspect. In the case of Islamic terrorism, however, the state won’t even use the compelling evidence it has.”

And:

“Compiling a composite of the criminals most likely to hijack an airline or blow up a building isn’t hard. Try as they may to confuse our congenitally compromised caretakers, the terrorists have seemingly been unable to recruit to their cause people with first names like Eric or Olaf and surnames like Edwards or Christensen.”

The excerpts are from this week’s column, “Lunatic Government Occupies Airports.”

Flying Free

America, Government, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Liberty, Private Property

As travel by air becomes more tormenting, charter planes are going to become a viable option. In fact, I’d be investing in these companies now. As charter planes are used with greater frequency, more suppliers will enter the market to take care of demand. Eventually, prices will become more feasible.

Charter companies, I am sure, are putting together good packages as we speak, for business people who have to fly frequently. Or for people like me who tolerated the odd pat down, but refuse to let the Transportation Security Administration thieves steal my Rene Guinot toner and my powder compact.

I can’t afford a charter flight, but longtime reader Robert Rupard might change that. Other than his splendid reading habits, Robert is president of the charter “Wings Air“—it offers great rates. His motto: “On Wings Air, You’re Already There.” Fly with Robert, and you can avoid the mandatory molestations in the state-occupied airports. No lost Baggage either.

If you’re going to any of the destinations Robert frequents, be sure to make your reservations. Also check out my weekly column tonight, which deals with government goons gone wild in the airports. And while you’re at it, why not read a golden oldie, “Whose Property is it Anyway?”.

Israel Has Something To Be Proud Of

Israel

In Israel, the reckoning over Lebanon began even before the ceasefire went into effect. Soldiers were questioning the mission. Reserve soldiers are returning home with a kitbag full of complaints,” writesAkiva Eldar of Ha’aretz newspaper. The news media was buzzing with reports about failures of intelligence, funding, and execution at the highest echelons.

As they witnessed rockets and missiles raining down on northern Israel, ordinary Israelis began grumbling about how their prime minister failed to do much more than get their men killed and level Lebanon. Now they’re calling Olmert’s stint a plain failure. Many of Israel’s pointy heads are predicting he won’t last.

Indeed, politicians and military men appear to be fair game in that country. There’s none of this, “It’s treason to criticize the troops and the commander-in-chief during a war.” Why, Israeli soldiers themselves joined in committing treason American style.

Practically nobody in Israel denies the war was a whopping failure (that camp is biggest in the US). There is no attempt, as in the US, to create a parallel universe, a Third Dimension, where reality is reversed to comport with political spin. (We even have a cable channel dedicated to sanitizing Iraq.)

Contrast the atmosphere in Israel with that in the US.

Iraq is a disgrace, a blot. The invasion was unprovoked, conducted in ignorance of Iraqi history and fractious ethnic and religious makeup. (The British fought the identical insurrection in 1920.) America’s actions in Iraq have caused thousands of civilian deaths, destroyed infrastructure, halted oil production, and saddled the American taxpayer with the burden, in perpetuity, it would appear, because to leave is to “cut and run,” say the Treason Twits.
Yet an entire military-media-industrial-congressional-complex has risen to smear anyone who states these facts. The “reality based community” is called “anti-war, anti-America, traitors, Bush-haters.”

A month after the failed war commenced, Israelis are ready to string up their leaders. Three years after the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, a good number of Americans are still quite willing to hang any sensible individual who so much as hints at the need to fire the goons in charge.

'Hezbollah's Other War'

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Michael Young of Reason Magazine has penned an outstanding analysis of the Lebanese political landscape in the New York Times. Young is the opinion editor of The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper published in Beirut. Skip the ideologically slanted positions proffered on the blogs, left and right, in favor of this forensic breakdown:

“The great fear expressed by many Lebanese is that the country can absorb neither a Hezbollah victory against Israel nor a Hezbollah defeat. If Hezbollah merely survives as both a political and military organization, it can claim victory. The result may be the expansion of the party’s authority over the political system, thanks to its weaponry and its considerable sway over the Lebanese Army, which has a substantial Shiite base. This, in turn, might lead to a solidification of Iranian influence and the restoration of Syrian influence. A Hezbollah defeat, in turn, would be felt by Shiites as a defeat for their community in general, significantly destabilizing the system.

As one Hezbollah combatant recently told The Guardian: ‘The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let’s finish with the Israelis, and then we will settle scores later.”

This essentially repeated what Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast a week after the conflict began: ‘If we succeed in achieving the victory . . . we will never forget all those who supported us at this stage. . . . As for those who sinned against us . . . those who made mistakes, those who let us down and those who conspired against us . . . this will be left for a day to settle accounts. We might be tolerant with them, and we might not.’

Meanwhile, the country has sunk into deep depression, and countless Lebanese with the means to emigrate are thinking of doing so. The offspring of March 8 and March 14 are in the same boat, and yet still remain very much apart. The fault lines from the days of the Independence Intifada have hardened under Israel’s bombs. Given the present balance of forces, it is difficult to conceive of a resolution to the present fighting that would both satisfy the majority’s desire to disarm Hezbollah and satisfy Hezbollah’s resolve to defend Shiite gains and remain in the vanguard of the struggle against Israel. Something must give, and until the parliamentary majority and Hezbollah can reach a common vision of what Lebanon must become, the rot will set in further.”