Month: February 2003

Mark Ledbetter’s letter is a bunch of rubbish. Much of his “history” is not factual.

He says, for instance that a Frenchman defeated the English in 1066. The fact is that William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, was Scandanavian, not French. Though illegitimate, he was directly descended from the group of Norsemen led by Rollo, who sailed up the Seine in Year 911, and forced the French king to cede French territory on the coast. The Normans, as they became known, progressively expanded their territory, becoming a dominant military power on the continent. It was from this historical base that William defeated English forces under Harold Godwinson, and became King of England.

Ledbetter says the U.S. fought the Korean War alone. Absolutely not true! The U. S. went into Korea only after the United Nations resolution condemning North Korean aggression, and authorizing sending armed forces into Korea, under the UN banner. The UN Command, Korea, included military forces from Great Britain, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, to mention only a few, and included the very substantial Army of the Republic of Korea (aka South Korea.)

Ledbetter’s “opinion” that the U.S. produced no military genius of the order of Napoleon is insupportable. Several of our military leaders through history have shown far more “genius” than Napoleon: George S. Patton, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson, are considered by many military historians to be far superior to Napoleon as military tacticians and strategists. Measured by success, certainly Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur can lay claim to greater military genius than Napoleon. After all, they never met their Waterloo, now did they?

Regarding Ledbetter’s denigration of the overwhelming role of the United States in defeating the Axis armies in two hemispheres in World War II, he is truly “full of poppy cock.” Were it not for our intervention and participation both before and after Pearl Harbor, it is highly unlikely that the other armies of Ledbetter’s “coalition of Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and France” could have been so successful against the far more modern and highly developed war machines of Nazi Germany and Emperial Japan.

I could go on point-by-point to challenge Ledbetter’s rather unpatriotic put down of the United States of America. I think the above examples lay an adequate groundwork to indict all of Ledbetter’s arguments as unsupported by historical documentation.

Even more, I could destroy his affected glorification of France as America’s protector, savior, and friend. To be truthful, the French have never forgiven us that our Revolution was so much more successful than theirs.

Finally, I am a longtime (50 years), loyal Democrat. Furthermore, I do not like our current President or his policies. However, I will always put my Country before partisan politics. Ledbetter’s letter seems to trash our Nation solely to promote his presumed personal opposition to military action against Iraq.

David M. Ginsberg, Ph.D.

Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)

TO THE FLYER:

“The hard fact is that so long as Saddam 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.” President Bill Clinton/December 16, 1998

First, being against war is a legitimate position for people to take. It is NOT anti-American, and traditionally it takes courage to be and advocate for peace. All sane people want to avoid war. War should always be the last thing a nation turns to when resolving matters of national security. There are legitimate reasons for being anti-war. Just as there are legitimate reasons for being in favor of the use of force (as opposed to being pro-war).

I’m not writing in an effort to get Jenn Hall to change her ‘viewpoint’ on what could be World War X. She has absolutely every right to be concerned and to worry about what is to come. In fact, I totally agree with her on the way ‘generation x’ has been unfairly categorized as a bunch of slackers; many of those ‘slackers’ went on to revolutionize the economy by being on the leading edge of the internet revolution. I only hope to point out that there are logical, legitimate reasons to disarm Saddam Hussein as soon as possible.

I’m anti-war; we’re all anti-war. Only a nut is ‘pro war’. No one wants to see people die. War is hell. War never solved anything…except for ending fascism, nazism, and communism. Is there something worse than war? War is bad but evil is worse when it gives us no alternative but to go to war or cease to exist.

Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists (and Saddam Hussein has had contacts with terrorist organizations such as Hamas, and Al AQueda) is the potentially catastrophic threat that we face. The most important thing to consider is whether or not Saddam Hussein has proven to be a danger in the past, and whether he is capable of supplying terrorist organizations with nightmarish weapons to unleash upon the world.

What did President Clinton have to say about this back on February 18, 1998? “Now, let’s imagine the future. What if he [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost

its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And someday, some way, I guarantee you, he will use the arsenal.”

Is there a ‘rush to war’? Is this truly a ‘pre-emptive’ war? Technically, the Gulf War never ended. During the gulf war, Saddam Hussein’s army got it’s clock cleaned in just a few days. In order to stay in power (which is what the U.N. wanted, and George Bush 41 went along with) he agreed to a cease fire which involved him agreeing to disarm, with United Nations inspections to confirm his disarmament. For 12 years he has violated United Nations sanctions on this matter, routinely shooting at American and British warplanes flying over the northern and southern no fly regions (in the year 2000 alone Iraq fired at U.S. & British planes about 366 times). He didn’t cooperate with the U.N. inspectors then and, when they left in 1998, he wouldn’t allow them back in

until a he was basically forced to, thanks to George Bush #43. He has violated over 15 U.N. resolutions over the past 12 years and is continuing to do so. One must ask: can you trust a man who has proven that he can’t be trusted? would a man such as Saddam Hussein

be dangerous if he had nuclear weapons? Is George Bush being unreasonable to conclude that you can’t trust a mass murdering, mad-man who has lied to and deceived the international community for the past 12 years?

Does the mere threat of regime change by force make a

difference when coming from an America President who

actually means what he says work? Consider the

following – –

* “The Iraq story boiled over last night when the

chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said

that Iraq had not fully cooperated with

inspectors and–as they had promised to do. As a

result, the U.N. ordered its inspectors to leave

Iraq this morning” –Katie Couric, NBC’s Today,

12/16/98/ (during the Clinton presidency)

* UNITED NATIONS — In view of Iraq’s refusal to allow

the new commission of weapons inspectors into the

country, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said

Tuesday he saw “no point in sending the team.” Iraq

also refused to allow the chairman of the Security

Council’s sanctions committee, Peter van Walsum of the

Netherlands, to visit Iraq in an effort to improve the

oil-for-food program established in 1996, after a U.S.

initiative. – UPI / Sept. 13, 2000 (during the

Clinton presidency)

* “As Washington debates when and how to attack

Iraq, a surprise offer from Baghdad. It is ready to

talk about re-admitting U.N. weapons inspectors

after kicking them out four years ago. ” –Maurice

DuBois, NBC’s Saturday Today, 8/3/02 (during the

Bush presidency)

Anyone who has ever dealt with bullies in school knows

that they don’t respond to logic and reasonable

requests. There are times when you have to stand up

and defend yourself against bullies or they don’t stop

their bullying tactics.

We are facing as great a danger as great as the rise

of Nazi Germany or old style Soviet backed communist

aggression: that of Islamist extremism. There

precious few womens rights in Islamic countries. They

still behead people for adultry in Saudi Arabia.

Women are mere property throughout the Islamic world.

Homosexuals under the rule of the Taliban had stone

walls pushed over on them, crushing them to death. Yet

there are many Islamic nations that have not invaded

neighboring countries, gassed their own people,

torched the oil fields of a neighbor (causing an

ecological disaster) or launched scud missiles into

Israel; Iraq under Saddam Hussein has done all of

this. Make no mistake, the poor people of Iraq are not

to blame and have every reason to fear a war; they’re

at ground zero. They have suffered for over two

decades under conditions we can’t even imagine. 4

million Iraqis exiled; 60% of the Iraqi population iis

dependent on food aid from the government; tens of

thousands of political prisoners are in jail and

routinely executed; Hussein had his daughters husbands

executed.

It is worth noting that Iraq has routinely clustered

it’s military assets in and around civilican

populations; this was also a tactic the Taliban used

in Afghanistan. In spite of what so called ‘peace

activists’ from the Workers World Party claims, they

know that America does not target civilians. If

America routinely targeted civilians, they would hide

their military assets elsewhere. This alone proves

that America does not intentionally target civilian

locations.

Saddam Hussein has no way of delivering a nuclear,

chemical or biological device to America via the

conventional means of missiles. But he could easily

provide such a device to a terrorist group who has an

ax to grind against western civilization in general,

and America in particular. The enemy of their enemy is

their friend. Is there evidence that Saddam Hussein

has worked with terrorist organizations outside of

Iraq? Yes. Hussein has clear connections to the

homocide bombers of Hamas in Israel in that he

provides checks to the families of those very bombers.

This alone is helping destabilize the Middle East.

As Tony Blair pointed out, if 500,000 marched for

peace, that is still less than Saddam Hussein has

murdered. If a million marched, that’s still fewer

people than the number of people who have died in wars

began by Saddam Hussein. It’s worth noting that almost

none of the anti-war protestors were protesting the

horrible human rights abuses Saddam Hussein engages in

routinely. They might as well have held up signs

saying, “Saddam kills his own people, it’s none of our

business”. Why have none of these marchers gone to

Iraq to protest Saddam’s human rights violations in

front of one of his palaces? It’s easy to call George

Bush a nazi when most people probably know deep down

that George Bush won’t have their tongues cut out, dip

them into acid baths or murder their families in

retaliation. Yet people at the recent anti-war marches

certainly love to cast Bush as ‘evil’; what term would

they use for true evil?

Most of the anti-war marches to date seem to be more

anti-America / anti-Bush than anti-war. While I’m sure

that many of the people there are simply against war,

one can’t help but note that they aren’t out there

protesting the atrocities of Saddam Hussein. One has

to wonder who they would hate more if Saddam Hussein

were to turn weapons of mass destruction against the

Iraqi people; George Bush for trying to resolve the

matter, or Saddam Hussein for actualy doing it? Where

were the protestors in 1998 when then President Bill

Clinton launched more cruise missiles into Iraq than

were used in the Gulf War?

Then there’s the fact that many of the organizations

involved in organizating the anti-war marches aren’t

pacifist or anti-war in nature at all. They’re

anti-capitalist, anti-American. The International

Action Committee, the Not In Our Name Organization,

International A.N.S.W.E.R. (and others) are all

closely connected to the Workers World Party, with

some members associated with all of the above as well

as the Revolutionary Communist Party. They literally

support North Korea. They supported the Chinese

crackdown on students in Tianamen Square protesting

for democracy. Remember the famous picture of the lone

student standing in front of a line of Chinese tanks?

The Workers World Party supported the guys in the

tanks. They supported the ‘peoples war’ of Nepal, and

the brutal Shining Path in Peru. Amnesty International

and Human Rights Watch have reported on the violence

associated with these ‘revolutionary movements’. Just

go online and do a google search on some of their

members (Mary Lou Greenberg, C. Clark Kissinger,

Ramsey Clark, Brian Becker to name but a few) and read

their writings endorsing communist revolutions

worldwide. They are not anti-war pacifists at all and,

when you look at their writings and web sites, you

find that they advocate the overthrow of the United

States government so that they can replace it with a

‘communist dictatorship of the proletariat’. Those are

their words. The unsuspecting folks who truly desire

peace, and who march with them, are being used and

duped by advocates of an ideology that is responsible

for the deaths of nearly 100 million people in the

20th century. The term the Soviet’s used to use for

such people was ‘useful idiots’. Those are their

words. This is why many are suspicious of the true

intentions anti-war organizers, and the judgement of

those who follow them. They’re being judged by the

company they keep.

Historically, peace movements do not prevent wars;

they serve to convince dictators that the other side

has no stomach to fight, even if attacked. It has

been reported that Saddam Hussein has been gloating

over the recent marches. In the 1930’s there were

peace marches to prevent any action being taken

against Adolf Hitler. Inaction there resulted in a

world war. In the 1960’s there were marches demanding

the removal of American troops from South Vietnam.

History has shown that one of the practical effects of

the communist backed anti-war marches (and that is a

literal fact) of the 1960’s is that it prolonged the

war itself. Subsequet testimony by North Vietnamese

generals confirms that the Vietcong forces we were

fighting in Vietnam were effectively destroyed in

1968; most of the war, and most of the casualities

occurred because communist North Vietnam counted on

the fact that America would give up due to increasing

public pressure from anti-war marchers. The blood of

hundreds of thousands of people are on the hands of

anti-war activists who handed communist North Vietnam

a victory. After communist forces won that war with

the help of peace activists, they slaughtered nearly 2

million of their neighbors (see Pol Pot).

War for oil. Per Mitchell Cohen, spokesman for the

Green Party USA, “I’m no Saddam-hugger, but if we want

someone to step down from office, the world would

benefit if George W. Bush would do so. . .Now the

spectre of Bush’s ‘war without end’ is being extended

to other oil-producing countries: the US-backed coup

in Venezuela earlier this year is one such example; it

was defeated only because hundreds of thousands of

workers and poor people poured into the streets there

in defense of democracy. The war against Iraq is

moving full steam ahead; and, over the coming months,

Saudi Arabia’s oilfields may be fully expropriated by

Exxon et al., under US military occupation”. There

are a lot easier ways for America to get oil than to

wage war. War drums are adding a level of

uncertainty in world markets that is destabilizing at

best. The countries actually opposing the United

Nations resolution (France and Germany) to disarm

Saddam Hussein are the ones who are the ones profiting

off of the misery of the Iraqi people. France has

billions invested in Iraq; France provided Hussein

with nuclear reactors; Germany has provided tons of

sodium cyanide to North Korea and who knows what else

to Iraq. Chances are, they really don’t want the

world to know how involved they are with providing

Saddam Hussein with nuclear material and

chemical/biological agents. It is those nations who

are worried about how a war would affect their profits

off of oil deals they have with Iraq, or the billions

France has received from Iraq in the food for oil

program.

If not now, when? We must nip the Iraqi situation in

the bud before it becomes a nuclear threat, capable of

blackmail, just as North Korea is today. If a nuclear

device were detonated on America soil there would be

no way (short of it being track by radar on the tip of

a missile)to determine where it came from. An

explosion from a suitcase bomb would vaporize the

components. Only the radioactive ‘signature’ could be

used to determine its origin.

While the cost of inaction could be far greater than

the threat of inaction, there are no guaratees. There

is plenty of reason to worry about the last desperate

actions Hussein will take. Right now there are reports

of three Iraqi cargo ships which have been trolling

around the ocean since November that are refusing to

explain what they’re doing (the fear is that they’re

loaded with who knows what, and that their captains

may be ready to scuttle the ships and create an

ecological disaster)….then there’s Hussain

al-Shahristani, ex-chief adviser to the Iraqi Atomic

Energy Commission, who’s warning that Saddam Hussein

might create a ‘ring of death’ around Bagdad to slow

down coalition troops and turn the cities residents

into hostages…would peace activists then blame

George Bush or Saddam Hussein

In a way, the French and Germans are right. We need

more inspections. Right now, we have 150,000

‘inspectors’ right next door to Iraq. It’s time to

send them in and let them start inspecting.

February 19, 2003 — WASHINGTON – Saddam Hussein

plans to use chemical weapons to create a ring of

death

around Baghdad to slow down a U.S. invasion and turn

the city’s residents into hostages, a former Iraqi

scientist said yesterday.

Hussain al-Shahristani, ex-chief adviser to the Iraqi

Atomic Energy Commission, said at a conference in the

Philippines that Saddam has hidden chemical and

biological weapons in deep underground tunnel systems

– to be unleashed in a last stand around Baghdad.

“There has been discussion within his circle to set up

what they call a ‘chemical belt’ around Baghdad using

his chemical weapons to entrap the residents inside,”

said al-Shahristani. (excerpted from the New York

Post)

In America one is free to protest the government. It

is the patriotic thing to do when one sincerely

believes that the government is wrong. In spite of

the venemous assaults mounted against George Bush this

past weekend, you don’t see the secret police rounding

up dissenters who are exercising their first amendment

right to free speech. How does Saddam Hussein handle

dissent? According to the Arab news service Al-Hayat

Saddam Hussein issued a decree stating that anyone who

insults him or his family will have their tongue cut

out. The previous penality was a six year prison

sentance. With protestors claiming that Bush is a

‘Nazi’, one must wonder what word they would use to

describe Hussein.

In closing, the intent of the email is not to change Jenn Hall’s mind at all. I prefer a world where people don’t agree on everything. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Only in a dictatorship does\ everyone have to ‘agree’ on something (like the 100% of the Iraqi people who voted for Hussein in their last ‘election’). I just wanted to point out that there are sincere, thought out reasons for the actions currently being taken other than people being ‘pro-war’. There are sincere people on both sides of this issue who need to respect each others differences, and they can begin by getting past

partisan rhetoric and trying to understand where the other side is coming from.

Sincerely,

Chris Leek

Memphis

HE’LL BE BACK

Arnold Weiner, a Republican political activist of sorts whose relentless self-absorption is such as to make Democratic state senator John Ford look self-effacing, has a grievance: It is that he did not receive “better press attention” recently when he was making election speeches to neighborhood Republican clubs in his effort to become the next chairman of the local GOP.

Weiner is anything but bashful — often to his detriment, as when, shilling for his fledgling (and now defunct) probation agency a few years ago, he boasted in a solicitation letter which inevitably became public that he had the county’s Republican judges in his pocket. Or so his words were interpreted. He was booted from the Shelby County Republican Party’s steering committee as a consequence — forced to leave by the then chairman, lawyer David Kustoff, who happens to be Weiner’s cousin.

p>Kustoff, who was in charge of the successful Bush presidential campaign in Tennessee in 2002 and ran a respectable race for Congress in the 7th District last year, is widely considered to be as deft as Weiner is, well, daffy, as able to take the long view as Weiner is typically fixated on himself, as unlike his cousin as is humanly possible — so much so as to bemuse one concerning the vagaries of DNA.

Not surprisingly, Weiner and Kustoff are estranged. Weiner, who is not without a self-promoter’s high-octane get-go, campaigned hard against his cousin some years back for a place on the GOP’s state executive committee. He lost, but not before he had peppered the local landscape with campaign signs — something wholly unprecedented in an intra-party race of that sort.

Weiner is not without other credentials — some of them surprising. A longtime military reservist, he maintains a runner’s physique and has surprised many a local fitness buff by showing up in the passing lane and moving briskly past during one of the several Memphis-area 5-Ks held here annually. He and his wife Scarlett, a nurse, are dedicated parents who are successfully raising their adopted son to apparent health and happiness.

On the record, Weiner can be said to possess numerous virtues, in fact. He is friendly enough, a hard worker on various party and community projects, and clearly without overtly malicious intent — though try telling that to Joe Cooper, who remembers a speech Weiner made to the steering committee in 1995 that persuaded enough members to endorse another candidate in the city court clerk’s race that year, keeping the hopes of that candidate (lawyer Mike Gatlin) alive and expanding the field just enough to keep Cooper a few votes shy of ultimate winner Thomas Long.

Which brings us to the reason why Weiner must imagine his chairmanship ambitions to have been unfairly thwarted. It is true that, at one or two of the several forums at which candidates for the chairmanship were invited to speak, Weiner exceeded expectations. His arguments for himself — focusing mainly on his suggested standard of hard-line party purity for Republican candidates and cadres — were made with surprising coherence and intensity.

But the phrase “exceeded expectations” is the rub. Weiner is near-legendary both among his fellow activists and, especially, in local newspaper circles for being something of a stalker — insistently offering for publication an endless number of screeds on this or that subject, usually on some rarefied international matter on which, to put it gently, his take is not up to the level available from other, better informed and more skilled, writers. It is this reputation that may have kept his speeches at the recent forums from having the resonance he desired for them.

The real bottom line, of course, is this: Candidates for political office, either exalted or petty, should not be dependent on the independent media for getting their messages across. Arguably, the most basic role of the media in political campaigns is to report the degree to which this or that candidate represents a body of supporters, and why.. The American system of government is representative, and political reporting should reflect that fact.

From that point of view, both of Weiner’s GOP chairmanship rivals are more deserving of notice. Contractor Jerry Cobb, a perennial aspirant for party office, has long held a reputation as a gadfly and reformer, and has an identifiable and loyal corps of supporters. Relative newcomer Kemp Conrad, the current favorite, maintained enormous visibility during the past year working with other party members on minority-outreach projects and labored hard to turn out supporters at the party caucuses last month that elected delegates to Sunday’s forthcoming convention at White Station High School that will select the coming year’s party chairman.

To his credit, Weiner has succeeded in attracting some energetic and capable backers — notably Bill Wood, increasingly prominent in party affairs, but not by the most generous reckoning does the body of his cadres approximate those of Conrad and Cobb. Now as ever, politics is about numbers, not about the quantity of ink or air time one can cadge from a news source.

For the record, partisans of Cobb and Weiner have challenged the party credentials of 150 or so delegates pledged to Conrad, whom they concede to have done far better with the numbers on caucus night. An appeal was made to a party credentials committee Monday night, but the committee — equally divided between establishment and non-establishment types — ruled unanimously against it.

Another effort will be made at the state party level later on, Cobb indicated this week.

Meanwhile, win, lose, or draw on Sunday, Arnold Weiner has got some of his devoutly desired press attention this week.