Some years ago, while dining in a Paris restaurant, I asked the waiter about the venison on the menu. He told me that it was smaller than that served in the United States.
The waiter, a long-faced man, who, come to think of it, looked rather like the junior senator from Massachusetts, went on to say, "But then, everything in Europe is smaller than in America."
I was too much the gentleman to tell him that my corn-fed venison back in the American Midwest was more tender than his and tasted better, if only un peu meilleur.
Given France's support of our humanitarian efforts in Iraq, I shall not be spending much time in French restaurants for the foreseeable future or, for that matter, in German concert halls.
I have long admired the charm of French life and the Germans' conception of music, at least from the 17th century to the early 20th - but misgivings about the French and the Germans that began with their behavior in the 1930s and have continued to the present make them repellent to me.
They never faced up to post-World War II communism or to their responsibility for the cruelty and destitution that replaced their colonial empires in what came to be called the Third World. Even in the NATO alliance, they almost never met their military budgets.
Now they are sitting back and lecturing us while our coalition attempts to lift barbarism from the Iraqis, to sober up the nihilists of the Middle East and to defeat terrorism.
The French and the Germans have revealed no plan, no will and no intention of bringing justice or peace to Iraq.
The only evidence I have seen of their involvement in the area is long inventories of arms they sold to Saddam Hussein and catalogues of payoffs they received from the United Nations' oil-for-food scheme.
The French and the Germans have almost always let the English-speaking peoples bear the cost of liberty.
Even in the Balkans in the 1990s, they importuned upon the United States for as much military might as they could possibly inveigle from us.
Nonetheless, throughout the Cold War and now into the war on terror, we Americans have episodically had to witness their imbecilic anti-American rallies.
As they burn our flags and ignorantly depict our presidents as cowboys, we are supposed to take instruction from their infantile tantrums.
Old Europe obviously is conflicted about cowboys. Their chattering classes are given to using the term "cowboy" as one of disparagement. Yet American Westerns remain a staple of entertainment on television stations all over the old bone heap - Orwell's term - that is Europe.
As the French and Germans continue to dodder around in their moral and intellectual senescence, they are hastening the day when they move from being a topic for historians to being a topic for archaeologists.
Tom Wolfe once joked that their countries had become theme parks fit for the commercial genius of Disneyland. Actually, it now appears that under the leadership of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, their countries are more likely to become archaeological digs. If the terrorists of the world have their way, unimpeded by the military resolve of the English-speaking peoples, the day will come sooner than later.
These thoughts struck me the other day while driving from Washington some 250 miles into the Virginia mountains. Just weeks before, I had been driving in Europe - in Ireland, to be specific. The Irish countryside, like the countryside of those countries I have now banished from my travel plans, is lovely. But that French waiter of years ago was right. Europe is not as big as America.
From my car roaring along a spacious four-lane highway, I see vast rolling hills, wide valleys and large modern cities popping up and then dropping off as I accelerate on. The fields are alive with cattle and crops about to be planted or freshly planted. The roads bustle with huge trucks hauling an enormous variety of products. Overhead, blue sky and huge billowing clouds contend for attention. America really is big.
Perhaps because our ancestors were so energetic and capable, Old Europe's descendants of peasants and effete aristocrats feel a bit ashamed. Still, this is no excuse for acting so shamefully. If the French and the Germans have any sense of honor, they will lend a hand in rebuilding Iraq.
More chapters of appeasement and collaboration will do them no good.
In looking after their interests abroad, the French have overlooked bribery, corruption and even genocide. A foreign policy based on the cash register
When it comes to foreign policy, opinion polls as well as a sampling of Hollywood blockbusters show that Americans see themselves as the good sheriff, selflessly sorting out a strange and unpredictable world.
But as they chew over the congressional report on 9/11, they are clearly struggling to come to terms with the reality of their latest foreign adventure.
In contrast, the French foreign ministry is unambiguous about its role: France is the birthplace of human rights and the cradle of the Enlightenment.
Thanks to giants such as Voltaire, France inspired others - for example, in the United States - to liberate themselves from oppressive, corrupt aristocratic elites.
So much for self-image: in practice, the French are running the cash registers in a Wild West whorehouse.
Not only do the French, like Edith Piaf, regret nothing: their determination to keep their arms exports booming pushes them to sidestep their own laws, not to mention the international conventions they have signed.
While all countries tend to pursue a foreign policy based on self-interest, the French have a network of arms salesmen and military advisers working in concert within their perceived spheres of influence to supply mass murderers.
In an age when world leaders apologise for slavery or the Irish potato famine, and pledge adherence to an ethical foreign policy, the French prefer to overlook the parallels between their conduct in Algeria and the Americans' antics at Abu Ghraib prison.
There are few revisionist voices questioning France's ability to embrace such paragons as Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein in any given conflict.
One searches for a French politician of the stature of Robin Cook hurling intellectual grenades at their own government's moral inconsistencies.
The Elysee Palace's routine disregard of its clients' human rights records makes President Jacques Chirac's new status as hero of the left and guardian of Europe's conscience on Iraq all the more ironic.
This is the same Jacques Chirac who, as French premier in the 1970s, sold Saddam Hussein two nuclear power plants ("This deal with France is the very first concrete step towards production of the Arab atomic bomb," gushed Saddam).
Chirac later declared himself "truly fascinated by Saddam Hussein since 1974". France went on to sell the Ba'athist regime $1.5bn of weapons.
In the 1990s, the French oil giant Total Fina Elf spent six years developing the Majnoon and Bin Umar oilfields, representing 25 per cent of Iraq's oil reserves.
Alcatel won contracts worth $75m, its main task being to upgrade Baghdad's phone system; Renault sold Iraq $75m worth of farming equipment; and, once the trade embargo was partially lifted, France controlled 25 per cent of Iraq's imports.
It is estimated that, in 2001 alone, 60 French firms did $1.5bn in trade under the now-suspect oil-for-food programme.
In December 2003, when the US announced it was barring opponents of the Iraq war from bidding for US-financed projects worth $18bn, France professed astonishment. The then French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said Iraq's sovereignty should be resolved before reconstruction could begin.
France was more enthusiastic about invading Afghanistan, and it has duly reaped the economic rewards.
According to de Villepin, France has made Afghanistan a priority for financial assistance. It pays its 18 per cent share of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office budget, which in turn funds reconstruction.
However, unlike the Germans, who are giving an additional $390m (£214m) over the next four years, the French have so far sent only an extra 33.7m (£22.4m) and are being bad-mouthed for not stumping up more in the present deteriorating security situation.
France has total armed forces of 450,000, of whom 5,000 are stationed in African states with which France has a "defence agreement".
However, only 550 could be found for Afghanistan, where the Taliban are now resurgent in the south and east, and warlords in the north make the prospect of free and fair elections unlikely.
To be fair, the French are paying for the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to go to Afghanistan to "evaluate their needs and expectations". Meanwhile, Alcatel is installing the mobile-phone network for Kabul and five other cities.
In the Balkans, France still enjoys a cosy relationship with Serbia, despite the death of Francois Mitterrand and allegations about his son's business dealings.
"Everyone has seen Radovan Karadzic chauffeured around the suburbs of Sarajevo," says Bernard McMahon, an aid worker in Bosnia. "It happens all the time. Karadzic gets out of the car and greets his people like he's a hero. The French peacekeepers must know he's there, because he couldn't be more obvious."
McMahon is a retired British army officer who has been in Bosnia since that war began. He says local Muslims feel betrayed, as war criminals move about freely while French soldiers look the other way. "People believe the French tip off the Serbs every time there's an operation."
Sympathetic observers point to France's large aid budget. At 0.41 per cent of GNP, it is slightly larger than Britain's 0.34, but much more than America's 0.14. A high proportion of this sum goes to Africa and pays for the global network of 1,000 Alliance Francaise centres, a brave attempt to hold back the global spread of US political hegemony, bubblegum culture, and the English language.
But Richard Youngs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace questions France's commitment to propagating democracy, suggesting that its aid is focused on projects which spread French culture, rather than schemes that foster human rights and transparency in government, or fight corruption.
Linda Melvern, author of two studies on the Rwandan genocide, believes that French policy then, as now, is "almost beyond belief. The more one looks into their actions, the worse it gets. The French Senate inquiry into Rwanda was a whitewash . . ."
Her third book about Rwanda will concentrate on the role of France. She has a leaked memo confirming that the French supplied members of the interim government responsible for the massacres with satellite phones to direct operations across the country. "They hand-delivered them by courier," she says. "In the run-up to the massacres, the French had 47 senior officers living with and training the genocidaires.
French policy is about influence and money and Francophonie," says Melvern. "They are very professional at manipulating the UN system. By controlling Boutros Boutros-Ghali, their candidate for UN secretary general, they determined what information about the Rwandan genocide reached the outside world."
Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that business interests might be tipping the balance against France's taking a stand on human rights in Sudan.
Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch explains that TotalFinaElf has oil concessions in southern Sudan that it cannot touch until the peace deal between Khartoum and the south sticks. The French are wary of giving the regime in Khartoum a hard time about its ongoing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Darfur, in case it walks away from the southern peace deal, thus imperilling Total's prospects.
Burma is not part of the Elysee Palace's francophone project, but it is of great concern to TotalFinaElf, which has been involved in developing the Yadana gas pipeline project for nine years. The company boasts of "morally irreproachable behaviour on the part of our teams", but it seems its stirring declaration applies only to the salaried employees with written contracts.
The Nobel prizewinning democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi says simply: "Total has become the strongest supporter of the Burmese military system."
Lord Alton of Liverpool, a regular visitor to Burma, believes there is a concerted attempt to end sanctions, cleverly orchestrated and probably bankrolled by supporters of the regime. "The leaders of the National League for Democracy and Burma's ethnic minorities are quite clear: no embargo should be lifted until significant moves have been made towards democracy. Rewarding a regime that has committed genocide against the Karen, imprisoned political dissidents and coerced vast numbers into forced labour would be a classic example of western economic interests triumphing over humanitarian and human rights concerns."
Perhaps the nation that brought us the Enlightenment has the best of motives in lobbying enthusiastically - as it currently is - to end the EU sanctions on selling military equipment to China, imposed after the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests. French exports increased 32 per cent to 4.6bn (£3.1bn) last year, and Chirac's backing for China is unwavering. He has warned Taipei not to provoke its giant neighbour; and he did so, undiplomatically, during a state visit to Paris by the Chinese president in January.
Maybe the French believe that human rights in China are improving. They would do well to consider the British manufacturer who supplies supermarkets with salads, and who sourced walnuts from China. He received customer complaints from people who had found human teeth in their food. Further investigation revealed that the walnuts were being cracked open by Chinese political prisoners using their teeth.
Andrew Wood from the Campaign Against Arms Trade says: "France is consistently in the top four arms suppliers and, in recent times, has been the lead supplier to developing nations as well as conflict zones like the Middle East and India/Pakistan."
A director of one of Marconi's military equipment businesses remarks that "the rest of us are amateurs. The French have a network of unaccountable government agencies and retired military officers helping arms manufacturers promote their goods. They link aid deals, credit guarantees and sweeteners, and they get the big sales. The British are getting better at this, but we're not in the same league as the French."
Amnesty International has criticised France for the lack of transparency of these agencies, and for their involvement in military services consultancies, particularly in Africa. "The French government still fails to ensure its export-licence and end-use monitoring systems prevent such transfer falling into the hands of those who have been responsible for human rights violations."
A book by Andrew Swindells due to be published early next year reveals the cynicism with which French interests are pursued in "la France Afrique". "Everything with France is about business, and nothing would make them blush. Officials shrug and say, 'Many people have died: c'est la vie.'" He believes that the Elf (part of the ubiquitous TotalFinaElf) corruption trial of 2003 gave us all a lesson in how France does business abroad.
But perhaps the most damaging consequence of France's policy is its vigorous defence of the annual 41.5bn (£27.5bn) of European Union agricultural subsidies, of which it takes 22 per cent, the largest share. Most NGOs believe little will improve in Africa while the EU, the United States and Japan dump cheap surpluses there. Farming accounts for 70 per cent of employment in Africa, and genuine fair trade is seen as one of the few ways to make globalisation work for the developing world. However, Oxfam claims, the French government is leading the anti-reformists, refusing to consider substantive reform until 2006.
Alongside the blatantly commercial focus of French foreign policy is France's desperation to keep its place on the UN Security Council. The Elysee's self-image is one of a wise and shrewd world power stiffening Europe's nerve against bloated US imperial ambition. No doubt the French are sincere - but listen carefully, and you will hear the ring of a cash register.
The leftiest big city on the Left Coast was Clinton country on Monday, with former President Clinton continuing his blockbuster book tour and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton headlining a Democratic fund-raiser where she vowed to defeat the Republicans' "extraordinarily ruthless machine."
Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.
"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
The United Nations may indeed be the answer, as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy insist it is.
But only if the question is ‘what is the most morally corrupt international organization in the world?’
Without argument the UN has degenerated into what esteemed journalist Claudia Rosett refers to as an institution mired in corruption, secrecy, venality and total lack of accountability.
That degree of ethical collapse might still be repairable, but only if the UN admits its errors.
To date there are no signs of institutional remorse. In fact, the organization flouts its criminal actions in the face of the world, then wraps itself in sanctimonious platitudes in order to retain power. Given such an attitude there are few options left to the U.S. other than to demand top-down reform of the international body.
Demonstrating how disconnected the UN is from reality, Rosett notes that in a recent UN survey Secretary General Kofi Anan frets over ‘tone at the top,’ a reference to the ‘less positive’ opinion most UN staffers have of their senior leaders.
The problem isn’t tone, she continues, but ‘accountability at the top’ (emphasis added). In detailed testimony provided to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, Rosett elaborated at length the incredible web of corruption that defined and obscured the UN Oil for Food Program.
Oil for Food was in theory a program whereby Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, though under international UN embargo, could sell limited amounts of oil and in return use the funds generated to purchase needed commodities such as food and medical supplies for its population. It was established by December 1996 and continued under UN supervision until Coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein in last year.
As part of the search to find WMDs, links to terrorist organizations and other violations by the Saddam regime, extensive files were discovered that catalogued the Oil for Food Program.
Saddam used Oil for Food as a way to circumvent economic sanctions, bring in prodigious amounts of money and lavish that money on himself and his cronies.
Along the way Saddam made certain that the right UN and complicit government pockets were well lined.
For example, Kojo Anan, the Secretary-General’s son was in on the take as were government officials from Russia, China and France (surprise!).
The UN administrator of the Oil for Fraud program, Benon Savan, reported directly to Kofi Anan and no one else.
Even at this late date accounting and secrecy at the UN is so guarded that it cannot even officially verify the actual amount of money that went into the program. Anan’s figures are $111 billion, but that could easily be understated.
Tragically, little if any relief was afforded the Iraqi people as a result of Oil for Food. Infant mortality rates soared under the program. People lived in squalor and disease without potable water and electric power. Infrastructure decayed. Hospitals had no medicines and test equipment. Education spiraled downward.
A potentially developed, sophisticated society was allowed to sink deeper and deeper into poverty, disease, terror and death while a corrupt dictator was propped up. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who strutted in palaces of gold and jewels while his people starved. Make no mistake; the UN was an accomplice to gross fraud with all its consequences.
UN officials responsible for the Oil for Food program have the blood of tens of thousands of Iraqis on their hands.
Who in the UN? According to most observers the degree, scope and depth of corruption in the Oil for Food program is so extensive and pervasive that it is difficult to grasp. Rosett says that ‘had the UN deliberately set out to design a program opened to manipulation by Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is hard to think how the UN could have improved upon the arrangement that was put in place.’
In other words, this was no accident: the UN from the onset envisioned the Oil for Food program as a get-rich-quick program.
Okay, you might think, is skimming this money such a big deal? Well, yes, it was so big that this scam has been characterized as involving ‘staggering levels of corruption,’ with an estimated at $10 billion-plus in bribes, kickbacks and other payoffs to individuals and to governments. Anan’s Secretariat office alone collected more than $1.4 billion over the life of the program supposedly to monitor, audit and administer it, yet due to a UN policy of extreme secrecy there are no public records of the program.
It was not until Coalition forces cracked open the extraordinarily thorough files kept by Iraqi intelligence offices that the entire putrid deal was exposed to light. Names from the UN, France, Russia and China immediately were discovered. Again, the numbers were in the billions and billions of dollars. For economic basket cases like France and Russia, with a long history of corruption, Oil for Food must have been the golden goose in the desert.
Now the motivation for the intense lobbying to prevent Coalition enforcement of UN resolutions becomes clearer. All those Ministerial-level trips to Baghdad to assure Saddam that they would never permit the U.S. to topple him are explained. Forget about human rights or international law.
The fraud represented in the Oil for Food program, encouraged and virtually administered by the UN, gave Saddam funds to continue to procure missile technology from North Korea, pursue WMD research and development programs, and funnel money to his own thugs and terrorist groups like Ansar al-Islam, Islamic Jihad and suicide bombers. In short, the UN kept in power the very dictator they professed to condemn in the Security Council chambers.
The harsh truth is that any institution composed in majority by authoritarian, dictatorial governments – as the UN is – cannot be better than its component parts. The UN, like its predecessor the League of Nations, is an idealistic concept but a dysfunctional reality.
The leopard does not change its spots by changing its environment. Place it in a cathedral and it is still a predator. Neither do thugs and crooks from dictatorial nations reform simply by crossing over the threshold of the United Nations building. They are still dangerous characters who have no moral authority to lecture anyone.
The UN, far from promoting world peace and safeguarding human rights, has sunk to the level of accomplice if not perpetrator. Oil for Food is the tip of the iceberg, not the entirety. Virtually every so-called ‘peace keeping’ mission has turned sour because of ineptitude, cowardice and corruption. The UN record for human rights protection evaporated in such hell holes as Rwanda and the Balkans. The record of failure is long and shameful.
The solution is first to recognize that the UN is a failed institution. Instead of American politicians talking about subverting American sovereignty in defense, military and economic matters to this pit of corruption, they ought to be demanding accountability on behalf of our citizens and taxpayers. The most effective way to do convince people of UN failure is through investigation, disclosure and transparency. Once the shocking truth is revealed, the UN is unlikely to be able to continue to operate in its present form.
The time is long overdue to draw up an international organization whose membership is predicated on existence of a representative government. Euro-socialist states like France would still be members but would not be able to dominate. An institution of democracies would have infinitely greater moral credibility and fortitude than the money- and power-hungry collection of reprobates that now inhabits the buildings on Turtle Bay.
Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu has been an Army Green Beret lieutenant colonel, as well as a writer, popular speaker, business executive and farmer. His most recent book is Separated at Birth, about North and South Korea.
Even as shoppers line up outside bookstores to get their copy of “My Life”, publisher Alfred A. Knopf has already announced that a deluxe edition will be available later this month featuring a cover photo of a pair of gray pinstripe pants and a zipper.
Spokesperson Natalie Boramundo acknowledged the similarity between the proposed cover and the 1971 “Sticky Fingers” album cover by the Rolling Stones which featured a black-and-white close-up of a pair of jeans with the zipper pulled down.
“Just as that cover captured a moment in the career of a great rock and roll band, we think that this cover captures a moment in the career of a great American president,” said Boramundo, adding that the zipper on “My Life” would be pulled up prior to shipping, “in deference to Mrs. Clinton.”
Unnamed persons within Knopf who were in attendance report that Clinton himself posed for the photograph, and that several different shots were required. “His zipper was up, then down, then up, then down again and that’s how it went before the shooting finally ended,” they said.
The printing will be limited to another 2 million copies. The deluxe edition will come packaged in a cigar box and is due to come out June 30th.
San Francisco, CA, Jun. 21 (UPI) -- A plan is being considered that allow non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote in San Francisco school board elections.
The San Jose Mercury News said Monday the proposed November ballot measure was aimed at getting more parents involved in their children's education by waiving California's requirement that voters be U.S. citizens.
San Francisco has long been a home to a large Asian immigrant community as well as growing numbers of Latinos. Only those non-citizens with children in public school would be allowed to vote, and only in school board elections.
The Mercury said a similar proposal that would have allowed immigrants to vote in all municipal elections was rejected in 1996 by a judge who ruled the move would require an amendment to the state constitution.
If passed, the measure would be the first in California, although similar laws have been enacted in New York, Chicago and Maryland.
AFGHANISTAN: The war in Afghanistan is ongoing. Since Soviet troops withdrew, various Afghan groups have tried to eliminate their rivals. Although the Taliban strengthened their position in 1998 they have not achieved their final objective. Afghanistan harbours Osama bin Ladin, a wealthy Saudi Arabia dissident responsible for terrorist acts around the world. On 11 September 2001 members from bin Ladin's el Qaeda group highjacked 4 passenger jets in the USA, crashing one into the Pentagon and 2 into the World Trade Center, killing more than 2,000 citizens. The USA and its allies declared war on terrorism and counter-attacked, removing the Taliban from power. The war on terrorism and the el Qaeda continues.
ALGERIA: Armed Islamic groups formed and since 1992 have carried out attacks on key economic points, security forces, officials and foreigners. In 1995 Algeria's first multiparty presidential elections were held and the incumbent president Liamine Zeroual won 60% of the votes in a poll with a 75% turnout. The first multiparty legislative elections were held in June 1997 which were won by the National Democratic Rally, which holds the majority of seats along with the FLN. Although the armed wing of the FIS declared a ceasefire in October 1997, an extremist splinter group, the Islamic Armed Group (GIA), continued attacks. There is also evidence that many attacks are carried out by militias backed by the Algerian security forces. After years of civil strife, Amnesty International estimates that around 80,000 people have died
The Caucasus and Russia: The Central Asian republics have a long history of conflicts. Fighting breaks out regularly between warlords and religious groups calling for the establishment of Islamic states outside the Russian Federation. Russia is trying to hold on to the federation because the Caucasus is a vital supply route for the oil riches of the Caspian and Black Sea. With the break-up of the Soviet Union various groups fought for control in the republics. Conflicts from one republic spills over to the other and they continually blame each other for attacks. Chechnya, still part of Russia, was flung in an almost full-scale war in 1994-96 and, after a disastrous campaign, Russia was forced to re-evaluate its involvement in the area. In August 1999 Russia stepped up security in the Caucasus region as rebels from within Dagestan - a small republic where more than 100 languages are spoken - went on the attack in support of Chechnyan Muslim groups who claim independence from Russia. In September 1999 Russia launched a ground invasion into the area to cut rebels off from Central Asian supply routes. By January 2000 Russia was once again involved in a full scale conflict in Chechnya. The Caucasus issue is complicated by the more than 50 different ethnic groups each insisting to proclaim their religious convictions on the area. The situation holds serious danger for neighbouring countries, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Russia itself.
EYGPT: Fundamentalist Muslim rebels seek to topple the secular Egyptian government. At least 1,200 people have perished since the beginning of the rebellion. The conflict was primarily waged as an urban guerrilla/terrorist war. The opposition Muslim Brotherhood took part in elections in 2000, indicating that they felt armed force would not work.
INDONESIA: The struggle on the Indonesia islands is complicated by leaders of pro- and anti-independence movements, and by religious conflicts. More than 500 churches have been burned down or damaged by Muslims over the past six years. Both the Christians and Muslims blame each other for the violence and attempts at reconciliation made little progress. After a bloody struggle East Timor gained independence in 1999. The hostilities on other islands continue to claim dozens of lives, to such an extent that the break-up of Indonesia seem imminent.
INDIA/PAKISTAN: Muslim separatists in the Indian section declared a holy war against the mostly-Hindu India and started attacks in 1989, mainly from Pakistan-occupied section of Kashmir, and from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The conflict continues, with Pakistan also crushing rebellions with brute force in their section.
IRAQ: Supports Islamic terrorist acts around the world. Differing culture and religious groups within Iraq continues to clash with Shiite Muslims.
ISRAEL: Within its own borders, Israel continues to battle various Muslim organizations that seek independence for a Palestine state, areas made up of the Gaza strip, West.Bank, and part of Jerusalem. There is heavy international pressure on Israel to recognise a Palestinian state. The area of what today is Palestine was settled by Semitic tribes at a very early date. It was then called Canaan, and controlled by Canaanite tribes for more than 1,000 years. In about 1500 BC Hebrew, or Jewish, tribes began to enter the area. They later came into conflict with a people of Greek origin known as the Philistines. It is from them that the term Palestine is derived.
IRAN: After the Iranian Revolution in 1979 toppled the government of the Shah, the Mujahadeen Khalq soon began a bloody guerrilla war against the new Islamic government. The Mujahadeen are currently based in Iraq and conduct cross-border raids into Iran, as well as conducting urban guerrilla operations in the cities and conducting political assassinations. Iran occasionally launches raids against Khalq bases in Iraq.
KOSOVO: The ethnic Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) in this Serbian province fought a guerilla war against Serbia to claim the region. Beginning in February 1999, Albanians were forced out of the province, prompting NATO to attack Serbia. By July 1999 Serb troops were forced out of Kosovo, only to open an avenue for Albanian Kosovars to attack Serb Kosovars. The Albanian Muslims have since burned down dozens of centuries-old Christian churches. In an effort to establish a Greater Albania, Albanian Muslim rebels also launched attacks in Macedonia.
NIGERIA: There are violent religious clashes in the city of Kaduna in northern Nigeria beginning February 21 2004 and have continued. Kaduna is the second largest city in the north. The clashes followed a march by tens of thousands of Christians to protest the proposal to introduce Muslim sharia law as the criminal code throughout Kaduna state. Reports speak of rival armed gangs of Christians and Muslims roving the streets. Churches and mosques have been put to the torch. Corpses were seen lying in the streets and people's bodies hanging out of cars and buses, apparently killed while attempting to flee the violence. Local human rights workers said that more than 400 had been killed as a result of the clashes.
SUDAN: The largest country in Africa, has been plagued by a succession of unstable civilian and military governments since it gained independence in 1956 from an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. The long-running conflict continues between the Arab Muslim northerners of Sudan, (the base of the government), and the African Christians of the south. In the mid-90s Sudan was home to Osama bin Ladin, the international terrorist responsible for the World Trade Center attack. It is estimated that more than 1,2 million people have been killed in the Sudan war, brining devastation to the Sudanese economy.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: At war with terrorism.
PHILIPPINES: The Phillipines armed forces, with assistance of US troops, are fighting Moslem rebels - they have been linked to Osama bin Laden's el Qaeda terrorist group - on the southern islands of the country. Muslim rebel groups seek autonomy/independence from the mostly Christian Philippines. One rebel group, the Abu Sayaf Group, is believed linked to Osama bin-Laden's Al-Qaida. This connection, plus their tactic of kidnapping and beheading Americans, led the United States to send Special Forces to aid the Philippine Army.
Hospitals in Utah that receive taxpayer money can resume performing abortions on handicapped children, under a rule issued by the Utah Department of Health.
Hospitals had ceased doing such abortions after a new state abortion law went into effect May 3. Under the law, hospitals could lose their public funding if they performed abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or the threat of damage to a major bodily function of the mother.
But, under the rule adopted by the state health department, a publicly-funded hospital can abort a baby with a disability if hospital officials can prove that insurance, donations, or a patient’s personal check paid for the abortion.
Hospital officials are defending the rule, even though it could be perceived as a loophole which could lead to widespread abortions of children with special needs.
"If we had a woman who came to one of our physicians with a ‘grave fetal deformity,’ we would be able to provide the care she needs," Kim Wirthlin, a vice president for Health Sciences at the University of Utah, told the Salt Lake Tribune.
Wirthlin added, "This clarification allows us to provide the medical care that is appropriate and compassionate in situations of grave fetal deformity."
Utah Assistant Attorney General Doug Springmeyer also supports the health department ruling.
"We’ve just been looking for a realistic way for hospitals to determine that they’re not cross-subsidizing termination of grave fetal defects with other procedures," Springmeyer told the Tribune.
The Utah legislature adopted the abortion funding law in order to prevent both direct and indirect taxpayer support of abortion.
But a publicity blitz, led by hospitals, has prompted public officials to press for a relaxation of enforcement of the law.
Also, news organizations have devoted a great deal of attention to a woman from Roy, Utah, who was upset that she could not have an abortion at a hospital because of the abortion funding law.
Suzie Combe, who was pregnant with a child that doctors said would not survive after birth, elected to go ahead with the abortion by having it done at an abortion business.
Her husband, Glen, has been quoted as saying that he's not satisfied with the new health department rule.
"I think it is a Band-Aid fix," Glen Combe told the Deseret Morning News. "What really needs to happen is that the bill needs to be amended to fix the problem for people without insurance."
While mainstream news accounts say the new rule is directed toward "doomed babies," pro-life activists point out that a handicap does not necessarily mean an unborn child is doomed to die.
The rule change also seems to ignore the fact that medical research shows that abortions can be far more dangerous to a mother than childbirth, for they represent the artificial interruption of a pregnancy. Abortion has been linked to a host of medical problems, including sterility, breast cancer, and even death.
The rule has already taken effect, but a 30-day public comment period begins July 1. The rule is scheduled to be officially implemented in August.
The sponsor of the original abortion funding bill is now planning to attempt to amend the law to cover abortions for women without health insurance. The lawmaker, Sen. Curt Bramble (R-Provo), also wants to define "fatal fetal deformities" and tinker with the law’s references to the mother’s health.
Bramble is planning to work on the amendments with Steven Clark, medical director of LDS Hospital’s Maternal Fetal Medicine Program.
At the time the original legislation was passed, Bramble said, "Abortions are reprehensible and taxpayers should not be forced to pay for a procedurethey oppose."
The Killeen City Council voted last week to pass a resolution opposing the establishment of abortion businesses in the city.
On Tuesday the Council unanimously passed a "pared down" version of a proposed resolution, drafted in response to overwhelming public opposition to the opening of a new abortion facility in Killeen.
The original resolution stated the city council would consider officially "recognizing human life exists at the point of conception." Fearing that a legal battle might prove too costly, the Council passed another resolution, still opposed to abortion, and still requesting that the city manager find ways to limit or restrict the abortion businesses that might wish to open in Killeen.
On June 1, the town hall was packed with residents voicing opposition at a public hearing, in which 347 individuals spoke against the business opening, and only 3 spoke in favor.
City Attorney Kathy Davis explained at the meeting that, while federal law makes abortion legal, states have control over regulations. It has not yet been determined what municipalities can impose other than zoning restrictions, Davis explained.
"The question at some point that the council may or may not be faced with is, 'Do we want to be that test case,'" said Councilman Dick Young.
"The city council is very pro-life," observed Brian Thom of Central Texans for Life. They are looking to the legal side, while our organization will be working on public awareness."
Thom told LifeNews.com that Central Texans for Life will be organizing prayer, publicity campaigns and some peaceful protests in their opposition to the abortion business.
Opposition to the abortion industry has become very vocal in Texas in recent months, including Pro-Life Waco's boycott of Girl Scout cookies that received national attention.
Last month, Planned Parenthood of Cameron and Willacy Counties lost its financial support from the city of Harlingen -- support that the abortion business says it needed for its teen conference.
"Public officials are finally recognizing that the abortion industry should not be subsidized with tax dollars, especially when other essential services that do not prey upon young girls are desperate for funding," Elizabeth Graham, executive director of Texas Right to Life, told LifeNews.com.
Supporters of Planned Parenthood of Houston and Central Texas were notified by the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life that their affiliation with Texas' largest abortion provider would be publicized unless they cut off their funding. Eleven groups have done so, and the names and contact information for the other organizations, including J.P. Morgan, Pfizer, and the Houston Chronicle, have been published by the Coalition for Life.
Last year construction on a new Planned Parenthood facility in Austin ground to a halt when contractors called for a boycott. Planned Parenthood was forced to act as its own general contractor in order for work to progress.
Days after denying a student chapter of the NAACP official status, Catholic University officials met with leaders of the civil rights organization to discuss the situation.
Earlier this month, the Catholic University of America, located in Washington, D.C., decided against approving an NAACP campus chapter's application to become an officially recognized student group because its parent organization adopted had a position in support of abortion.
Though both sides met Wednesday to discuss the impasse, an agreement could not be reached.
Rev. David M. O'Connell, president of CUA, attended the meeting and told the Associated Press that two other groups already exist on campus that promote civil rights but not abortion.
"The feeling was manifested by the student life personnel that some of goals of the group could be met by groups that already existed," Rev. O'Connell told AP. "And, as this discussion continued over several months, in February it came to the attention of the student life personnel that the NAACP had adopted a pro-abortion stance. And that made that concern part of the discussion."
O'Connell has decided "the most appropriate and the best venue for reevaluating the decision and discussing it fully" is to hold a meeting with students as soon as possible after classes resume in the fall, according to an AP report.
After the decision, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said it was "outright discrimination and intolerance all rolled into one."
Mfume, a former Maryland congressman who built up a solid pro-abortion voting record during his tenure, threatened to sue if CUA officials didn't relent.
Rev. O'Connell said Mfume continued to discuss the possibility of a lawsuit.
"He deeply feels that the best place to resolve this question is, in his own words, in the court of law, in the court of public opinion," O'Connell told AP.
Two CUA organizations promote the interests of African-American students on campus: the Black Organization of Students at Catholic University of America and Minority Voices, an umbrella group for minority organizations.
In February, for the first time in the 95-year history of the nation's largest civil rights group, the NAACP officially announced a position in favor of keeping abortions legal.
The organization also co-sponsored a nationwide rally in April sponsored by leading abortion advocates such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood. They rally attracted less than half of the amount of people organizers expected.
Mfume said the CUA decision was the first time in decades that a college had not allowed a group of students to establish an NAACP affiliate.
ACTION: Make your views known. Contact the NAACP about their decision to endorse abortion at NAACP, 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore, MD 21215 or call (877) NAACP-98. Email washingtonbureau@naacpnet .org.
France's Socialist party urged President Jacques Chirac yesterday to dismiss Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and make policy changes after trouncing the ruling conservatives in European Parliament elections.
The Socialists gave the ruling UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) party its second election drubbing in less than three months in Sunday's elections. Voters punished the government over high unemployment and cost trimming as they did in regional elections in March.
But Chirac is not expected to dismiss Raffarin or change France's economic course, despite a new opinion poll showing a majority of French people want the embattled premier replaced.
"This colourless government has no legitimacy anymore and common sense should lead Mr. Raffarin and his team to resign," Jean-Marc Ayrault, leader of Socialist deputies in parliament, said in a radio interview.
"The president should assume his responsibilities in this serious crisis of confidence," said Ségolène Royal, a prominent Socialist regional leader. "The policies must change."
The Socialists won 28.89 per cent of votes cast, compared to 16.64 per cent for Chirac's centre-right UMP party, figures released from the interior ministry early yesterday showed.
It was the Socialists' best result in a European Parliament poll. Turnout was 42.79 per cent in the last big election before presidential and legislative ballots in 2007.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier called the result worrying, but Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said it followed a trend across Europe of voters censuring parties in power. Chirac and Raffarin said nothing of the election result. Raffarin was expected to answer questions on prime-time television tomorrow.
An exit poll published by Le Parisien newspaper showed 51 per cent of people wanted Chirac to replace Raffarin. More than 4,000 people were questioned in the survey after voting.
The Socialists' victory had been widely expected because of Raffarin's lack of popularity and a string of workers' protests over the government's reform drive, which is mainly intended to cut spending and reduce 9.8 per cent unemployment. The lacklustre campaign was dominated by domestic issues such as controversial health-care reforms and privatization plans which unions are resisting.
Editor's note. We have run a number of thoughtful examinations of the link between induced abortion and an increase in breast cancer. A friend sent me the following "Editorial Counterpoint" that appeared in the hyper-pro-abortion [Minneapolis] Star-Tribune newspaper.
It is an excellent overview of the case that a link does exist, and is very much worth your reading. The newspaper headlined the piece by John D. Hagen Jr. and Dr. Steve Calvin, "Don’t Dismiss Link Between Abortion, Breast Cancer." It is reprinted with permission.
************************* ****************
In recent weeks, overwhelming media pressure was brought to bear on the Minnesota Department of Health to change language on its Web site. The Web site had mentioned studies linking abortion to increased breast cancer risk. The Star Tribune has published extensive criticism of this claim. It has given no explanation, however, of the data supporting the claim:
* Breast cancer rates have increased substantially since abortion rates increased after legalization.
* Most studies show an increased rate of breast cancer in women who have had abortions.
* A coherent physiological hypothesis exists to explain this link.
Through 2002, 29 of 38 studies showed an increased breast cancer rate in women with a history of abortion. A comprehensive review of most of these studies was published by Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at City University of New York. Brind estimated a 30 percent overall increase in the risk of breast cancer due to induced abortion. The risk was even higher for young women with a family history of breast cancer. A physiological hypothesis exists to explain these findings. Breast cells divide and grow at a very high rate during the first six months of pregnancy. During the third trimester, in preparation for delivery and milk production, these cells mature and become resistant to cancer. Full-term pregnancies have a well-established protective effect against breast cancer. Breast feeding further increases this protective effect.
After an abortion, the breast cells cannot mature. They divide more rapidly than fully differentiated cells, and are more subject to mutations. A woman who has had an abortion, thus, has a larger number of cancer-vulnerable cells. This is especially true in young women who never have a full-term pregnancy.
Opponents of the breast cancer link primarily rely on one study of Danish women released in 1997. The Melbye study involved 1.5 million women, and claimed to find no increase in breast cancer rates among those who'd had induced abortions.
The Melbye study, however, involves large-scale methodological flaws. Brind points out:
* It studies women born after 1935, but counts abortions starting only in 1973 (when many subjects were in their 30s). Abortion was very widely practiced in Denmark prior to that date. Thus, the study vastly undercounts abortions among its older cohort of women.
* At the other end of the spectrum, the Melbye study includes several hundred thousand women under age 25. Almost no one is diagnosed with breast cancer that young.
Scientists, like everyone else, can be affected by ideological bias. Some researchers denied the tobacco/lung cancer link long after compelling evidence supported it. This history should be cautionary to those who would confer infallibility on medical organizations and experts on politically charged issues.
Three pro-life Minnesota medical organizations (with a combined membership of about 300 physicians) have proposed a public debate on the abortion-breast cancer link. Brind has stated his willingness to come to such a forum. The Minnesota Medical Association has been invited to designate an expert and join in sponsoring the event. Such a debate would help us all to test our ideological biases and better understand the facts.
John D. Hagen Jr., is a Minneapolis attorney. Steve Calvin is a Minneapolis physician and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota.
America’s problems with France didn’t start with President Jacques Chirac. Chirac is just the latest in a line of Frenchmen to give the United States a long and seemingly unending, migraine headache.
As President Bush sat on the podium at his recent meeting with Mr. Chirac--who was looking pompous as only Chirac can--it was obvious by the body language of the president that he would rather have been having a root canal without novocain than be sitting next to this man. Chirac also reeks of arrogance and delusions of grandeur and looks as if he needs to be frisked for the knife he always buries in the back of American presidents. While Bush did what was expected of him, giving the French leader due respect, Chirac seemed to feel no need to return the favor, even publicly.
There was a time, of course, when France was important. That was a long, long time ago, and somewhere along the line France got the reputation of being just a tad quick to surrender to enemies. Has France had a great leader since Napoleon?
You might ask: ''What about the French Foreign Legion?'' Well, it seems that no French are allowed in the French Foreign Legion. Perhaps that’s why it is so feared.
It has been said that we wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War without help from the French. The war may have lasted a year longer, but would the war have been lost without our ''good friends'' the French? What were the French after? Did they help us out of the goodness of their hearts or did they just want to poke a stick in the eye of their nemeses, the Brits?
Americans are even insulted by the French in Canada. The French Canadians tried to tear Canada apart and become a separate country, loyal to France and not England. French Canadians want to be independent, but prefer to sing the praises of the great French culture instead acknowledging Canada’s English roots. It must drive French Canadians crazy that the Queen is on Canadian money and still honored after all these years. Canada’s last president from the French providences, Jean Joseph Jacques Chretien, loved France so much that he named his first child, France. Chretien’s loathing of the United States was very apparent every time he spoke. Following Mother France’s socialist course, Chretien also destroyed Canada’s military and ran its economy into the ground paying for social programs. It is unknown if Canada’s military inherited the surrender gene from the French or the strong fighting gene from the English. Perhaps it depends on what part of Canada the soldier hails from.
The world met the great French leader and general, Charles De Gaulle, in the 1940’s. De Gaulle received his promotion to general in the field and when his country collapsed and surrendered to Nazi Germany, De Gaulle fled to England. In France, as in most countries, promotions to that level must be approved by the government, but France’s government had gone the way of the dodo, so De Gaulle just ''forgot'' to tell anyone that his high rank was not official. De Gaulle set about becoming the de facto French leader in England by driving Winston Churchill crazy.
Churchill kept De Gaulle busy by giving him control of the 1st Free French division which was made up of whatever flotsam and jetsam the British leader could dig up or have released from prison early. De Gaulle was kept away from any real war plans as the Allied leaders sent him and his band of criminals here and there, usually somewhere in a flank position because anywhere else ''General'' De Gaulle got in the way of the real soldiers.
De Gaulle drove General Eisenhower to distraction. De Gaulle was never happy that the American general was chosen to be the supreme commander in Europe. De Gaulle, of course, felt that honor should be his. The free world can thank God everyday that De Gaulle was not leading anything. He was consulted out of political respect and the knowledge that he would probably lead France after the war but that was the only reason. De Gaulle felt D-Day would be a disaster and would never be successful. That was just one just one in a long tring of De Gaulle’s opinions that were wrong.
After the Allied forces liberated France, De Gaulle was allowed to ''liberate'' Paris with his nonexistent army. This man, with his supreme ego, probably believed he really did liberate Paris. It was all political, of course, and General Patton was left grinding his teeth over the slight.
General George Patton, a great general known to be a little pompous himself, said he would rather have a battalion of Germans in front of him than a battalion of French behind him. Patton had a big mouth, but at least he had the skills in warfare to back up his ego.
De Gaulle did become the leader of France after World War II, and in the 1960’s he decided that French soil could no longer stand having American soldiers standing on it, so he pulled out of the military branch of NATO and ordered all American troops out of France. An angry President Johnson asked De Gaulle if he wanted us to dig up our dead and remove them as well. The story goes that a sputtering De Gaulle told him he didn’t mean THOSE American soldiers.
In the here and now, Chirac proudly carries on the French anti-American tradition. However, Chirac has taken it to new heights. Saddam Hussein was a longtime good friend of Chirac, and Saddam thought right up until the first bomb dropped that his good friend in France would keep him safe from the Americans. Saddam should have known that the French always promise more then they can deliver.
As irritating as France’s active support of Saddam was prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the revelation that France, along with Germany and Russia and the United Nations were lining their pockets off the blood of Iraqi children does not seem to fall into the category of ''friend and ally.'' The fact that our soldiers have been killed with weapons sold to Saddam by France and other ''friends'' is more than irritating. It’s infuriating, considering the current attitude of the French Government.
The latest insult was Chirac’s declining to attend President Ronald Reagan’s funeral. Already in the States for the G-8 conference, Chirac flatly refused to attend the funeral and, at first, was not even going to send a representative. After some protests from the French press, Chirac decided to send an underling. Could it be that Chirac is jealous of Reagan for doing what France could not? Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union--something that the mighty French felt was impossible.
Admit it. The average American would just like to smack Chirac every time his face is shown on the television screen. Chirac and the French use the United Nations to hang on to what little power France has left, and the fact the United States can survive quite nicely without any help from France just drives the French crazy. How dare the United States be so darn successful!
As France’s economy tanks, the United States economy grows. As the French military perfects the art of surrender, our military doesn’t know the meaning of the word. As ''new Europe'' looks to the United States for guidance--and not France--its pride is hurt. Didn’t the world get the memo from God stating that France should be the leader of the world?
The world seems to have missed that memo--or read it, laughed, and threw it away.
If the World Loves You Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick
Thursday, May 13, 2004 There is a saying that has its roots in the 10th chapter of St. John's Gospel. It reminds us that we should not look for the love of the world, but strive only to find God's will and do it with all our hearts. There is a good chance that if we are never criticized by others, we have missed the mark of being faithful to the teachings of the Gospel. If the world loves you, you are probably always saying what the world wants to hear.
In light of that simple but very profound truth, I hope you were not upset at the criticism of your archbishop in an advertisement that has appeared in some places lately. I appreciate the zeal of those folks who are critical, but I do not agree with them, and during my recent Ad Limina visit to Rome, it was clear that so many of the highest authorities in the Church are in agreement with my position.
As you probably know, I have had a consistent position on the obligations of every member of our Catholic family to follow the teaching of the Church on the gravely important issues of our time. Certainly, the defense of life from the moment of conception to the moment that God calls us home is the primary of these issues, since without life no other human rights are possible. I have also been consistent in teaching, as our Holy Father does, that the care of the poor, the weak and the stranger, as well as the protection of peace and justice must be an essential part of our commitment as Catholics.
The disagreement that I have with the folks who are annoyed at me is that I disagree that in this instance we should use denial of the Eucharist as a public sanction. As a priest and bishop, I do not favor a confrontation at the altar rail with the Sacred Body of the Lord Jesus in my hand. There are apparently those who would welcome such a conflict, for good reasons, I am sure, or for political ones, but I would not.
At the same time, I feel it is important for each of us to understand our own personal responsibility when it comes to receiving the Eucharist. I realize that in modern times, perhaps even more since the '60's, some Catholics have fallen into a new and false understanding of the Blessed Sacrament, one that does not recognize the awesome nature of the Eucharist and our need for great respect in the way we approach it. In the days when we had to fast from all food and drink from the previous midnight in order to receive Holy Communion, our sense of the wonder of the Eucharist was enhanced. When the Church, in order to encourage us to partake of the sacrament, relaxed those rules, some people may have incorrectly concluded that the rule about being in the state of grace was relaxed as well. Maybe the presence of this controversy is itself a special grace to give us a chance to clarify what our personal dispositions must be in order to receive the Eucharist worthily.
In this light it may be good to recall Pope John Paul II's words to the bishops of the United States during his second visit to our country in 1987. The Holy Father spoke very clearly as follows: "It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the Church's clear position on abortion. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a 'good Catholic' and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere. I wish to encourage you in the love of Christ to address this situation courageously in your pastoral ministry."
I am asking the Catholic Standard to reprint the statement about the worthy reception of the Eucharist which appears in the missalettes and which was authorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Basically, it places on the individual Catholic the need to make a judgment as to whether he or she can properly come to receive Communion. One must not be conscious of any serious sin that has not been absolved in the sacrament of Penance. One must be striving to live as a good Catholic, keeping the commandments of God and of the Church, especially those two great commandments to love God and neighbor. This would exclude from Communion anyone who would hate his neighbor or harm his neighbor, in particular when that neighbor is a little unborn baby in its mother's womb. This doctrine by which the Church places a particular personal responsibility concerning the decision to approach the altar on each individual, protects the holiness of the Eucharist and challenges its children to holiness as well. It places the decision to approach the altar on the informed conscience of the individual Catholic — informed by the truth of our teachings — and, therefore, each one of us must not presume to approach Holy Communion if we are not, in our informed conscience, already with the Lord and in communion with the teachings of His Church.
This is what the Church teaches and, as your bishop and your servant and your friend, this is what I teach, too. Thinking of you, as I come back home to Washington, I pray that each one of us will never approach this most holy sacrament of the Eucharist without the necessary disposition to receive its awesome grace.
It is, of course, no surprise to you, but the disconnect between significant portions of the prestige media types and the rest of us grows more obvious by the moment. Even as the American public collectively reaches out to bid farewell to President Ronald Reagan, some of the tin-eared media elite are suggesting that perhaps treatment of the 40th President’s death and funeral arrangements has been “over-covered,†to quote NBC’s Tom Brokaw.
Sometimes you wonder if these guys are living on the same planet as the rest of us. Were they actually seeing, as opposed to just watching, what they’d understand is that an enormous number of people who came to the funeral home in California and then to the Capitol Rotunda would have been very young (or not even born) when Mr. Reagan served his two terms in the l980s. But people young and old recognize that he was a larger-than-life figure, who brought out the best in us, and who personally retained a genuine sense of humility until the very end.
Through this last week, Nancy Reagan has been amazing. The lives of few couples were knitted together more completely than the Reagans. Her deep pain at her husband’s death--a man whom she lovingly cared for through the long ten years of his Alzheimer’s disease–is transparent.
That is why even though I disagree, I understand fully why Mrs. Reagan said what she did at a May 8 fund-raiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She told the celebrity-studded affair that Alzheimer’s had taken her husband “to a distant place where I can no longer reach him and share our 52 years.â€
According to the Associated Press, Mrs. Reagan then added, “Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that for so long have been beyond our grasp. I just don’t see how we can turn our backs on this.â€
Tragically, Mrs. Reagan has succumbed to the mythology about stem cells from human embryos that is almost impervious to fact. No one understands this better than bioethicist Wesley Smith.
In a June 8 online column, Smith quoted New York Times political columnist William Safire on the issue of adult stem cell versus embryonic stem cell.
Safire’s argument was that adult stem cells are one of those “some day†pie-in-the-sky therapies. But “Safire has it completely backwards,†Smith writes.“Cloning is in its embryonic stage. Even if it could be used as an efficacious treatment (though that is a gargantuan ‘if’), its success would be a decade or more away. But adult-stem-cell and related tissue therapies are already treating human maladies. Indeed, ignored by Safire and other advocates, the science is moving forward at an exhilarating pace both here and abroad in animal and human studies.â€
Meanwhile, the “mainstream press†goes on apace, hyping one and diminishing the other. But, I’m glad to say, a few rays of truth are occasionally penetrating the fog of hype and misrepresentation.
Rick Weiss writes for the Washington Post and is as enthusiastic a proponent of embryonic stem cell therapy as you can imagine. But his article in today’s Post is headlined, “Stem Cells An Unlikely Therapy for Alzheimer's.†(You can read it its entirety at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2956 1-2004Jun9.html)
Weiss begins by highlighting all the attention to Alzheimer’s disease resulting from Mr. Reagan’s death and his wife’s comments last month, along with a letter sent to President Bush by a number of senators who want him “to loosen his restrictions on the controversial research, which requires the destruction of human embryos.â€
This is the “kind of advocacy that researchers have craved for years, and none wants to slow its momentum,†Weiss writes. The only problem is an “infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess.â€
What might that be? “[O]f all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit.†Why this would be so is easy to understand.
"The complex architecture of the brain, the fact that it's a diffuse disease with neuronal loss in numerous places and with synaptic loss, all this is a problem" for any strategy involving cell replacement, Huntington Potter, a brain researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa and chief executive of the Johnnie B. Byrd Institute for Alzheimer's Research, told Weiss.
To be sure, the tireless Weiss trots out the usual line about the promise of embryonic stem cells for curing other diseases and avoids altogether even a mention of alternative, unobjectionable sources. But even so, his article is very helpful.
A final thought. Laura Bush’s father died from Alzheimer’s. Appearing Wednesday on CBS’s “Early Show,†she spoke eloquently of the trials families go through. Mrs. Bush praised Mrs. Reagan as a role model for families struggling with this disease.
To her credit, Mrs. Bush did her best to avoid disagreeing with Mrs. Reagan at this most sensitive time. But when asked bluntly whether she was prepared to endorse Mrs. Reagan’s call to remove restrictions on the use of federal dollars to underwrite stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, Mrs. Bush said, “No.â€
Tomorrow we will conclude our week-long tribute to President Reagan. Please watch as much of the coverage as you can today and tomorrow. Encourage your children to do likewise.
When the news broke that President Reagan had died, my 16-year-old daughter couldn’t understand how I couldn’t understand that she didn’t understand how great a loss America had just suffered.
Like so many, including many people much older than she, my daughter did not have the kind of first-hand familiarity with our 40th President that old geezers like me do.
Yesterday, we talked about some of Mr. Reagan’s important contributions to the cause of life. I mentioned in passing that even some of his harshest critics issued statements praising his courage and conviction.
But something I didn’t elaborate on was the not-so-subtle hint we hear that, unlike President George W. Bush, Reagan was so amiable a guy that he never generated the kind of intensely personal opposition that President Bush faces.
This is so incredible wrong-headed that you almost don’t know where to begin.
As a policy maker, President Reagan would settle, when necessary, for singles and doubles, but he was not afraid to swing for the fences. His bold initiatives in areas beyond our purview as pro-lifers were greeted with a level of animosity and antagonism and sheer hatred that rivals anything leveled by even the loonier critics of President Bush.
That applied to our concerns as well. President Reagan was up-front in his opposition to abortion. This was not popular with the Media Establishment, and he was routinely pounded from New York Times pillar to Washington Post.
Among other things, Mr. Reagan wrote a book, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,†announced the "Mexico City Policy," which banned U.S. funding of private organizations that perform abortions or work to legalize abortion in foreign countries, and filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
This won him few plaudits from the opinion-makers.
But nothing generated the kind of hysteria that greeted the President’s attempt to protect infants with handicaps from lethal neglect. In response, only the Medical Establishment rivaled the editorial pages of the “mainstream media†for sheer vituperation. A word of background.
Spurred by the 1982 starvation death of a baby born with Down Syndrome, the Reagan Administration attempted to use regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, under authority of a law prohibiting discrimination against the handicapped in federally funded institutions, to prevent withholding of medically indicated treatment. Thinking back more than two decades later, I am still stunned by the ferocity of the opposition to what critics instantly dubbed “Big Brother in the Nursery.â€
Along the way a number of stunning revelations took place that shone light on some very grim, dark practices. The common denominator in all of these reports was a radical devaluation of the lives of babies born with handicaps. In some cases proponents of lethal neglect boldly published accounts of selective euthanasia of those babies whom doctors determined to lack a sufficient “quality of life.â€
But President Reagan and his Justice Department never faltered. They suffered a setback in early 1984 when medical groups persuaded an appeals court panel to deny the government access to the medical records of another injured newborn whose parents had received court approval to pursue custodial care only. But thanks to incredible persistence by pro-life leadership in Congress and the President, Mr. Reagan was able to sign the “Child Abuse Amendment of 1984" which defined “withholding of medically indicated treatment†as a form of child abuse.
If there is any one theme that has cropped up in the last few years, it is that President Reagan had been vastly underrated. A major part of the explanation is the appearance of books such as “Reagan: A Life In Letters,†and “Reagan, In His Own Hand.â€
In them we find revealed an intellectually curious, prodigious writer who not only wrote thousands of thoughtful letters, but who also in the late 1970s delivered more than a thousand radio addresses. We learn that he wrote two-thirds of them himself.
"In writing these daily essays on almost every national policy issue during the 1970s, Reagan was acting as a one-man think tank,†argue the editors of “Reagan, In His Own Hand.†Always content to be underrated, the President joked about not working hard. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It could be easy for newcomers to the Movement, those whose knowledge of the 1980s might be limited to what they read in less-than-charitable history books, to underrate the President’s enormously important contribution to what we are about. He was the first openly pro-life President, which did not win him many friends among the Media Elite.
But Mr. Reagan stuck by his guns. More specifically, he stuck by the babies.
Someday the reign of Roe will collapse. I say that with the same confidence that Ronald Reagan predicted that one day Communism would be “left on the ash heap of history.â€
And when that great day comes, when the littlest Americans once again receive the protection of the law, it will be in no small part because of the indispensible work of President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Driving home from work last night I learned that not only is Friday going to be a holiday for federal workers, much of Washington, D.C. is also going to be effectively shut down after about two in the afternoon today. Members of the D.C. Police department will be escorting President Reagan's body from Andrews Air Force Base to Constitution Avenue, where the coffin will be transferred to the caisson and brought to the Rotunda.
Over the next couple of days, hundreds of thousands of people will pay their respects to President Reagan. Listening to the news yesterday, I learned that in California, the lines of those who’d come to the funeral home were so backed up the wait was eight to 11 hours long. Nobody complained.
In the midst of this national outpouring of love for one of the great Presidents of the 20th century, discordant notes have begun to be heard. The front page of today’s Washington Post carried a particularly ugly attack on President Reagan.
But Mr. Reagan would not have been surprised. As personally kind and gentle and optimistic as he was, one of the principle reasons President Reagan succeeded was his keen grasp of human nature. Often he prevailed because he was able to read his opponents and take their measure.
Just as most of America mourns the passing of a genuinely historic figure, some of the loopier Reagan critics are surfacing. They are intent on reliving the glory days of the 1980s when they masqueraded their message of hate as differences over public policy.
In physics, for every action there is an equal opposite reaction. Not so in the case of Mr. Reagan. The reaction of ugly hate is tiny compared to the beautiful action of tens of millions.
There is an application to what you and I are about. What made me think of this was a piece in yesterday’s New York Times by David Brooks.
Brooks made a number of intriguing points about the Gipper, but none more important than how our 40th President revitalized a conservative movement that had sunk into a funk. Whereas, “Once it was liberals who rhapsodized about progress,†Brooks wrote, “since Reagan's time, it sometimes appears that liberals and conservatives have traded places.â€
Pro-lifers never lapsed into despondency. We have no time for that, not when there are unborn babies, little ones born with disabilities, and the medically vulnerable elderly to protect. Besides, as awful as the culture of death most assuredly is, we are confident, in the end, that the better angels of our nature will prevail.
Nor did we allow the ugly things said about us–slurs on our motives, our intelligence, and our commitment to both unborn babies and their moms–to slow us down. What’s at stake is far too important to allow trivia like this to throw us off stride.
But it would be hard to exaggerate the psychological lift we felt to finally have a pro-life President in the White House. Tomorrow, I’d like to talk about how President Reagan and Congressman Henry Hyde came to publicly embrace our cause–and what it meant for us. For it is in their very different but complementary journeys that we see why victory on behalf of life is ultimately inevitable.
I will be traveling on Thursday, so see you later.
Working on a project whose deadline was rapidly approaching, my wife and I were still able to listen to hours and hours of television coverage commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Early on Saturday, we heard the sad news that former President Ronald Reagan's health had taken a turn for the worse.
Within a couple of hours, we learned that "the Gipper" was near death. When Fox News broke in on one of its very moving D-Day profiles, I knew instantly that a great American had died.
In the two days since the man who brought the Soviet Union to its knees passed away, there have been tributes from around the world, including from many who opposed everything President Reagan stood for. In spite of immense policy differences, they admired a man who stood on principle, who brought this nation back from the brink of "malaise" and self-doubt, and who disarmed his fiercest critics with charm, wit, and genuine compassion.
Mr. Reagan's second term ended in 1988. As we all know, he wrestled valiantly with Alzheimer's for the last ten years. Not the least of his many contributions is that because Reagan was a beloved former President who was very candid about his condition, people are finally able to forthrightly discuss Alzheimer's, which had replaced cancer as the disease no one talked about.
Having left office 16 years ago, it's not surprising that Mr. Reagan's many contributions to the cause of life are not well known to many pro-lifers. But they were immense and must not be forgotten.
Mr. Reagan was our first unashamedly pro-life President. Those fresh to our Movement may be completely unaware of an extended 1983 essay later turned into a book that he wrote while President: "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation."
When he composed the book, it was the first ever written by a sitting President. Mr. Reagan took a lot of heat. But--like a true pro-lifer would--he wore the criticism as a badge of honor.
The book was subsequently reissued by New Regency Publishing, complete with an introduction by NRLC President Wanda Franz, Ph.D., and forewords by the Honorable William P. Clark and Brian Johnston, NRLC western regional director.
(You can purchase one or more copies by going to www.californiaprolife.org/reagan/reagan.htm)
In her introduction, Dr. Franz reminds us, "The Reagan Legacy included a wide range of pro-life actions--actions that defied the pro-abortion culture and often had to be passed over the objections of a hostile leadership in Congress." Mr. Johnston observes in his foreword that President Reagan was a protector of the fundamental rights common to a civilized society, adding that Reagan's assertion of "the preeminence of the right to life will, I believe, eventually gain him history's enduring recognition as a great statesman."
The Honorable William Clark served as then-Governor Reagan's chief of staff and later as a justice of the California Supreme Court. Under President Reagan, Judge Clark served as Deputy Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and Secretary of the Interior. In other words, he knew Mr. Reagan, a very private man, very well.
Judge Clark writes in his foreword, "[M]any people in both political parties have attempted to walk away from the predominant human rights issue of [President Reagan's] agenda, as they did from the similar issue of slavery a century and a half ago. Some contend that the life issue, like slavery, has been settled by the Court, or, acknowledging that abortion is an evil, have rationalized that it is a necessary evil. But evil it is, and the President felt the overriding obligation of his office was to cure this terrible wrong."
President Reagan's genius was an uncanny capacity for cutting through superficialities to get to the core. Mr. Reagan demonstrated that the abortion fight is not over when life begins--that was old hat even then; everyone understood that human life begins at conception--but what value we place on that vulnerable life.
President Reagan understood fully that in the final analysis we either accept or ascribe. That is, we either accept that our equality before the law is an endowment to all of us from our Creator, or we hold that we can ascribe worth/value/protection of the law to whomever we please based on some arbitrary and ever-shifting criteria.
Another way of saying this is that President Reagan believed fervently in the equality of life ethic while pro-abortionists subscribe to the quality of life ethic. President Reagan bravely and tenaciously fought infanticide, which reared its ugly head in a public way with "Baby Doe." In that tragic 1982 case, a newborn child was starved to death because the little one was born with Down Syndrome.
In my 24 years in the pro-life Movement, sitting helplessly by as that little child died a ghastly death was the most wrenching experience I've ever gone through. The President sprang to action and an all-out war was fought over whether facilities receiving federal dollars could discriminate against babies born with disabilities.
President Reagan understood what was really at issue: "The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion."
One final thought that is very, very important. I am indebted to Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard who wrote about this last November.
After it was announced that President Reagan had died, Tom Brokaw of NBC declared that when he was governor of California, Reagan signed a permissive abortion law. All of Reagan's instincts told him otherwise, but he was persuaded (in Barnes's words) that "the measure would have little impact. Instead, it prompted a surge in abortions."
According to Barnes, "Within a year after signing the abortion bill, Reagan told political writer Lou Cannon that he'd never have done so if he had been more experienced in office. It was 'the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation,'" as Cannon wrote in one of his books. Barnes adds, "By 1980, Reagan was campaigning for president in favor of banning abortion in all but rare cases."
This is significant for two reasons. First, like countless others, Mr. Reagan was duped about abortion. Once he saw his mistake, he worked to rectify his tragic error. His turnaround and what it accomplished is a great lesson for our Movement.
Second, President Reagan's pro-life stance was immensely important. As Barnes pointed out in the Weekly Standard, he was not only President but "undisputed leader of America's conservatives." Reagan "defined conservatism."
Why was that important? In the early years, there was no "full-throated" conservative opposition to abortion. Initially, Barnes writes, conservatives were mostly upset by Roe v. Wade's goofy legal reasoning. Only later when Roe was unpacked and they discovered that it meant abortion on demand did the Conservative Movement make common cause with the Catholic Church and assorted Evangelical leaders.
But even in 1976, the Republican Party's convention platform "had a lukewarm plank on abortion that praised foes of Roe v. Wade," Barnes wrote. Four years later--when Reagan was running against incumbent pro-abortion President Jimmy Carter--the Republican platform plank was staunchly pro-life.
This was because of Ronald Reagan.
Although he had been out of the public eye for a decade, Mr. Reagan's death stung me--and hundreds of millions of others--far more than perhaps many of us had anticipated.
But even this lengthy tribute would be incomplete if we do not elaborate on one phase of President's contribution which has never been given the attention it deserves which I touched on above: opposing infanticide. I'll shall do this another time.
Try this: Search the user/blog searh function here at tblog for "Reagan". When the list comes up, you can judge for yourselves who the jackals of the Death Cult are. They reveal themselves by their gloating tone, and gleeful disrespect in the titles on their blogs concerning the death of a former President.
Remember the bloggers and keep this behavior in mind as you read or reread any of their past or present works. Forewarned is forearmed. Laugh while you can monkeyboys, history will be more kindly towards him than you.
"I didn't know that Sen. Durbin's part-time job was writing fairy tales for politicians," said American Life League president Judie Brown, "but that is precisely what his trumped-up study presents to the serious Catholic who looks beneath the surface of his comments and examines the rationale."
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) released a study called "Votes and Actions of Public Officials from a Catholic Perspective" in a highly transparent attempt to provide political cover for Catholic members of the U.S. Senate with pro-abortion voting records. He cites numerous Congressional votes to back up his point that these senators agree with Catholic teachings most of the time. "While it is true that the Church clearly teaches that 'Christian faith is an integral unity,'" said Brown, "it is not true that all political 'issues' are equally weighted. Sen. Durbin ignored that fact."
According to the Doctrinal Note the Vatican (news - web sites) issued regarding Catholics in political life:
At the same time, legislative proposals are put forward which, heedless of the consequences for the existence and future of human beings with regard to the formation of culture and social behavior, attack the very inviolability of human life.
Catholics, in this difficult situation, have the right and the duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the responsibility of everyone in this regard.
John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a "grave and clear obligation to oppose" any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.
"Regardless of studies, evaluations, or forays into the flawed 'consistent ethic of life' argument," said Brown, "the fact is that if a Catholic public figure supports the act of abortion which is a direct attack on an innocent human being, then he or she should be denied Holy Communion until he repents of this grievous sin or should leave the Church.
There is no debate. There is no alternative. The truth does not change, regardless of politics."
A bride-to-be ditched four days before her wedding found another groom in time and married him instead.
Alison Innes, 20, from Arbroath, Scotland, was eight months pregnant when her fiance Peter Knight, 28, texted her to tell her he had got cold feet.
But the ceremony went ahead almost as planned on February 20 after her ex-boyfriend Daniel Innes, 18, stepped in to take Mr Knight's place.
This is not the first time true love has gone off its course for Mrs Innes. Last year she hit the headlines when her mother, Pat, 44, married her ex-husband, George Greenhowe, 21.
She had discovered her first husband in bed with her mother just 10 days after their marriage in Angus, in
November 2001. She filed for divorce naming her mother in the papers but then managed to forgive the pair and gave them her blessing - and even became their bridesmaid.
Mrs Innes told Closer magazine the news her second wedding was off came "out of the blue". "I didn't see Peter, but I received a text saying sorry," she said. "I was very upset and didn't know why he backed out."
But after hearing of her plight Mr Innes immediately asked for her hand in marriage. "I was so shocked," she said. "We weren't together although we'd dated for four months last year."
It took her just 48 hours to decide to go ahead and marry unemployed Daniel. Invitations were changed and a different size kilt ordered. Mrs Innes does not know who the father of her child is - it could be Mr Knight, Mr Innes or his brother John.
"I realised I did love Daniel," she said. "He made me laugh and he's good looking. He knew he may not be the baby's father but he promised he'd support me and that the baby would be his first priority. I feel certain I've done the right thing by marrying Daniel. He makes me feel secure."
Some years ago, while dining in a Paris restaurant, I asked the waiter about the venison on the menu. He told me that it was smaller than that served in the United States.