Auster Angry

Lawrence Auster has requested that I print the following:

Ilana,

I think you were out of line the other day when you referred to me as an “apologist” for the Iraq war. To call someone an “apologist” implies he is completely on board with something and is committed to defending it no matter what. To call me an “apologist” implies that I was acting out of partisanship or emotional identification and that I didn’t have a reasoned and critical basis for what I have argued over and over, which was (1) that we had reasons to believe that Iraq, a rogue regime, had WMDs, and (2) that given the existence of terror groups who would like to cause infinite damage to us if they could, we could not permit the Iraqi regime to continue in possession of, and continue developing further capacities in, WMDs which might be transferred to those terrorist groups. I also said prior to the war that I saw terrible things coming out of the war, but that I couldn’t see a way to avoid the logic summarized above that made the war necessary. That’s not being an apologist. That’s having a reasoned, and very reluctant, argument.

You could have described me as a person who supported the invasion for the reasons I have given. Given the huge number of criticisms and doubts I expressed about the war effort from many months before the war to the present moment, particularly my opposition to waging a war for the purpose of spreading democracy, for you to come out and call me simply an “apologist” for the war, period, as though I were an all-out champion of the administration in the manner of a Hugh Hewitt or a Rush Limbaugh, was not true or fair.

Lawrence Auster

Auster is definitely no Hannity, Hewitt or Limbaugh. If I gave that impression, it was unintended. However, because Mr. Auster’s “reasoned” position was palpably and patently flawed, violating objective reality, natural and international law, and the Constitution—he ought not to have held it. Iraq, in those good old days, was an economically desperate, secular dictatorship, profoundly at odds with Islamic fundamentalism. At the time of the invasion, it had acquiesced to inspectors (was in fact being criss-crossed by teams of them), hadn’t any ties to al-Qaeda or a hand in Sept. 11. It was a Third-World nation, whose military prowess was a fifth of what it was when hobbled during the gulf war. Iraq had no navy or air force. It was no threat to American national security. —ILANA

A South African Tells it Like It Is

Africa, Hollywood, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Race, South-Africa

[Angelina Jolie, Stan actually endures the daily realities of Africa. He has a few poignant words for Jolie and her ilk. Thanks for writing, Stan; we appreciate your perspective.—ILANA]

In The White Man’s Burden, William Easterly quotes a figure of aid given to Africa of half a trillion dollars. So, give or take a couple of hundred million either way, at which point exactly will governments, aid Agencies , politicians and the liberal left wake up to the fact that they might as well have flushed most of this money down the good old toilet for the amount of real aid this money purchased. Zimbabwe is now flat broke. People are starving and a once-thriving agricultural economy is all but non existent. As one travels north from SA the picture just repeats itself. The only real improvements seem to be to the residences, holiday homes , motor vehicle fleets, and weapon stashes of Africa’s numerous dictators and their goons. Starving people be damned.

South African society is becoming more corrupt by the hour, and our national past time is now violent crime (including rape and child rape) and corruption. Apartheid’s fault , right Angelina?
Your article “Angelina’s color coded kids is, unfortunately, spot on the button. Until the Jolies , Bonos and their ilk wake up to the real causes of Africa’s problems, you might as well get ready to watch another couple of trillion dollars being flushed down the same hole ,while poverty, death and disease continue to escalate. Reminds me of the words from Pete Seegers song ” Where have all the flowers gone.

When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
—Stan
Johannesburg
South Africa

Blood On Their Hands

Iraq, Media, War, WMD

On June 25, 2003, I wrote:

“When the administration plants or uncovers a couple of dozen drums of inactive, old goop, minus the necessary dispersing systems, ‘Boobus Americanus’ will easily accept these as the real ruse for war.

That day arrived. Last week, the administration issued a low-key announcement: it had unearthed in Iraq pre-Gulf War munitions containing degraded sarin.

“Hallelujah, proclaimed some of the Boobi. Salvation at last: the reason for an unjust war had been found. The administration didn’t quite go along with them.

War mongers and apologists must either expiate, or be doomed to wonder about, forever searching for a symbolic salve for rotting souls, and alternately muttering, “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

Updated: Is the FBI Entrapping Idiots? (& No, Timothy McVeigh Was No Idiot)

Conspiracy, Fascism, Government, Law, Media, Terrorism

CNN reports that seven Miami-based men “concocted a plot to ‘kill all the devils we can,’ starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, according to charges in a federal indictment revealed Friday.”

It transpires that this information was elicited by an “FBI operative posing as a member of the terrorist network.”

I watched the sister of one of the suspects enter “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The woman, bless her, was illiterate and probably borderline retarded. Let me tell you something: If American schools are producing the likes of this poor woman, homegrown retardation is more urgent a problem than homegrown terrorism.

Entrapment is equally worrisome. If the woman’s brother, also one of the accused, is as simple as she, then a wily and intelligent FBI agent could have a field day leading him on. The FBI is supposed to uncover existing plots, not help develop them by leading on a bunch of very simple, if unsavory, characters.

Rich Lowry has compared the hapless Miami bunch to Timothy McVeigh, who, according to Lowry, was also not very bright. This is a manifestly unperceptive observation. McVeigh was certainly intelligent. Read the interview he gave TIME and tell me it doesn’t reflect considerable intelligence. Read the interview the sister of the terror suspect gave Blitzer and tell me it doesn’t reflect extremely poor cognitive skills.

Compare this:

Asked by TIME magazine who were his favorite authors of political philosophy, McVeigh said:

“Patrick Henry, John Locke, of course many of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams. I thought those men were, at the time they were extremely well-educated. They could talk us in circles these days, we wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I really respected their observations and analyses of history past.”

To this:

Asked by Blitzer about her terror-suspect brother, Marlene Phanor said:

“Actually, he’s, um, he was, he was working and he got into this group and they started going to church, trying to help the community. But the guy, the leader, I never know where he came from, who he was. Actually, my brother and them don’t even know where he come from. But he came positive for them. He came to them where he can help them and help the community and humble their minds and humble their souls and everything.”

Morality aside, a couple of IQ standard-deviation points separate these two. To compare McVeigh’s intelligence to the likes of Phanor is a little strained, to say the least.

Provided the sister doesn’t represent a genetic anomaly (and her accused brother and his associates are bright), I’ll repeat my contention: it would have been easy for the FBI to ensnare this group.