Rhetorical Outbursts

This is overdue. Sorry Michael.

A friend of mine has started a blog focusing on Congressional legal issues. Since he was at the House Counsel’s Office for quite a while, he sometimes knows what he’s talking about. By the way, that’s the office that represents the U.S. House of Representatives in court, not the one that advises on the technicalities of drafting legislation.

So, behold: http://www.pointoforder.com. Check it out.

Somehow it doesn’t surprise me as much as I would have thought.

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors’ Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.

Debra Burlingame reminds us in her anniversary article today that it is important to look directly at the horror rather than blunting it with euphemisms:

Our fellow human beings were not “lost” in 1993 or on 9/11. They were torn to pieces. We must not give the enemy any quarter. We must confront the reality of their acts.

We must refuse to be fooled by their propaganda, which is meant to appeal to our own moral vanity - the belief that we can appease them by responding to their outrageous demands for accommodation, their open threats and their hateful rhetoric with even more forbearance.

Several months after the Sept. 11 attacks, I was asked to look through a thick, three-ring binder put together by the FBI, a catalogue of objects - photographed and numbered - that were the unclaimed personal effects of the 184 victims who perished at the Pentagon. They included things such as buttons, uniform insignia, house and car keys, wedding rings, shoes, personalized coffee mugs and, saddest of all, a miniature, hot-pink luggage tag with a flowery design meant for a little girl’s travel bag.

These mundane objects, the commonplace detritus of lives cut short, were deeply moving to see, perhaps because they were not some grand eulogy or noble tribute, but simple reminders of the fact that people like you and me went to work or boarded those planes on that lovely Tuesday morning, never dreaming that this was the last clear blue sky they would ever see.

Perhaps it is human instinct to turn away from suffering that goes on too long. We should celebrate life rather than wallow in grief. But we should vigilantly guard against self-delusion and denial as a means of coping with the terrible reality that we all lived through six years ago. There was a reason that we felt unified then.

The horror of what we experienced, individually and together, stripped away all the things that divide us today. We clung to each other, forgave each other, and were kind to each other, knowing that, in the end, we would only persevere together. Today of all days, that is something we should never forget.

MSNBC is re-airing their real-time coverage from that day. All the cable stations should do that every year.

Below are links to accounts of our own memories of that day.

BACKGROUND: Five Years Later | Four Years Later

That cracking sound you hear is the foundation of liberal academia at Boston College beginning to crumble under the weight of truth spoken by Dinesh D’Souza.

I’d love to see the video of D’Souza taking apart the “star professor” and head of the religion center at BC, Alan Wolfe. Then we could see for ourselves whether D’Souza’s account of the debate is accurate:

During the cross-examination, I asked Wolfe a series of simple questions about the Muslim world. What percentage of Muslims around the globe live in a democracy? He had no idea. Which is the largest Muslim country in the world? He answered, “India,” which is not a Muslim country at all. (The correct answer is Indonesia, which also happens to be a democracy.) I then asked him to name the world’s second largest Muslim democracy? Once again Wolfe ventured, “India?” (The correct answer is Bangladesh.) And on it went. I looked into the audience and saw many students, including Wolfe’s fans, with their mouths open. They couldn’t believe that one of their college’s most distinguished professors had been exposed as a complete ignoramus.

Sounds like it would be fun to watch. I’ve read D’Souza’s books: What’s so Great About America and The Enemy at Home. I thought he gave too much credit to the “they-hate-us-because-we’re-immoral” argument in The Enemy at Home. Islamic extremists are less pious and pure than they are cracked-up to be. The 9/11 hijackers at the strip club in Florida is one example among many. Still, his books are thought-provoking and well-written. He certainly knows what he’s talking about, more so than Alan Wolfe does.

So why is BC afraid to release the video? Not because it doesn’t meet their academic standards, but because they’re embarrassed that Wolfe doesn’t.

The irony of this familiar discussion about Christian pacifism is interesting. Much of what opponents of the American presence in Iraq would halt by forcing an early pull-out has nothing to do with the use of force. For a fascinating portrait of all the complex ways that the U.S. military seeks to establish order through soft power as well as traditional force, read Robert Kaplan’s eye-opening book, Imperial Grunts (here’s an excerpt). For some specifics on what’s going on in Iraq more recently, there’s a great video essay on Hot Air:

But [Army. Captain Stacy] Bare’s mission here is complex and subtle. He takes territory from the insurgents and militias a neighborhood at a time, by asking questions and fulfilling promises rather than by applying direct force. In the Al Salam neighborhood a mile or so from [Forward Operating Base (FOB)] Justice, in fact, the use of force in what the military calls “kinetic activity” has become counterproductive according to Bare’s commander, LTC Steve Miska.

* * *

Setting aside the weapon and body armor is one of many signals that Bare and his troops give to show their Iraqi hosts that they have come for peaceful reasons and that they trust their hosts. Today he’s here to meet with the NAC, or Neighborhood Advisory Council, a group of local citizens who have come together over time to make life in their community better by asking the Americans for help, and by helping the Americans when asked. Similar groups all over Baghdad meet with American troops weekly, but Al Salam’s NAC is one of the most successful to date in turning their neighborhood around.

* * *

Though Al Salam and Haifa Street aren’t far apart geographically, they might as well be in separate countries. Masked insurgent gunmen fire on Coalition forces from every imaginable sniper nest on Haifa; in Al Salam, the American Army rides in to a friendly reception. If there are hostile forces in Al Salam, they are nowhere to be seen today and haven’t caused much trouble in a month or so.

* * *

Through his terp, Armyspeak for interpreter, Bare first delivers two boxes that represent promises made and promises kept. Local women have decided that they want to learn sewing in order to find work. The boxes contain two brand new Brother sewing machines. Fatima, the council’s lone woman member present, smiles broadly and says “shukra”–”thank you” in Arabic. Local women will learn to sew, find work, and help make their families and their community stronger. And they will remember that the Americans made it possible.

* * *

CPT Bare, who has been working on several issues with leaders of local elementary schools, suggests dropping those floundering projects in favor of finding contractors to bid on providing meals for a school breakfast and lunch program. Surely a shop in Al Salam can fulfill the contract. The NAC agrees. A little bit of Head Start comes to Baghdad. If only the liberals back home knew what the Army’s finest were up to over here.

* * *

It’s much less about firepower than it is about the power of basic services to bring about peace. It’s about bringing “good government” and civil liberties and human rights to war torn Baghdad, a city that has seen none of those things in decades, if ever. At least half the war’s most vital action takes place in meetings like this one in Al Salam to discuss works projects, school re-buildings and urban renewal. It’s all part of the complex mission in Iraq, a mission that morphed from the defeat of an entrenched dictatorship to one focused on building a civil society that will survive after the Americans leave. CPT Bare and the rest of the US military are trying to build a nation that Saddam Hussein broke, both by keeping the Iraqi people under his boot heel for 35 years and by leading it into needless wars to establish himself as a latter-day Nebuchadnezzar.

Sewing machines and elementary schools. Come on! How can you be against that?

Michael Medved has a really good question for Christopher Hitchens:

Some 24 years ago Hitchens abandoned his British homeland and chose to make his life in the United States. This April, he proudly took the oath as a naturalized American citizen at the Jefferson Memorial. He has written movingly and persuasively of his love for his adopted country—despite the fact that throughout its history the people of the United States have proven notably more committed to their predominantly Christian faith than their Western European counterparts. A previous visiting journalist named Alexis de Tocqueville described America as “a nation with the soul of a church” and Hitchens conceded that to this day more Americans engage in regular prayer and Bible study than do the citizens of any other advanced Western nation. If religion indeed “poisons everything” then why has it so pointedly failed to poison the United States – producing, instead, a nation that Hitchens himself openly prefers to any other?

Of course this gets to the heart of the cognitive dissonance that makes Hitchens interesting and perhaps unique. He’s a well-known leftist proponent of Americanism. Is there another one?

BACKGROUND: Wilson Handles Hitchens

Iranian Police Smash Squirrel Spy Ring:

Police in Iran are reported to have taken 14 squirrels into custody - because they are suspected of spying.

BACKGROUND: When Squirrels Attack | When Squirrels Attack II

Some crowds are wiser than others. The one at Wikipedia is wiser than the one at Daily Kos.

The only thing missing from this post at Daily Kos (and the 1,981 people who Dugg it) is a little due diligence and common sense. A few minutes of searching reveals not a conspiracy by the legal profession, but rather an interesting explanation of the Titles of Nobility Amendment.

In the “Little Theater,” on the campus of Harding University, Jimmy Allen told me to love Suzannah as Christ loved mankind. That means, he said with a tremble in his voice, you be ready to take a bullet for her. We pledged to love, honor, and cherish. Then, an acappella quartet sang Joyful, Joyful, Henry Van Dyke’s Christian version of Ode to Joy.

In addition to these things, I remember my relatives (not a “Church of Christ” family) commenting on how that preacher sure took things seriously. I remember Dr. Fred Jewell letting me take my constitutional law final early that morning so that we could have the ceremony and leave for the honeymoon that afternoon. I remember that I had to go buy black socks because I didn’t have any clean ones to wear. I remember that it was unbearably hot and sticky in Searcy, Arkansas that day. But, most of all, I remember feeling great, like I had just won the lottery.

It may not be a storybook, but it’s our story. The “happily ever after” part is full of ups and downs and the little details that make three-dimensional reality different than the ideal in your imagination. The real thing is more complex, more ordinary, more heart wrenching, more uplifting, more amazing, more confusing — and more wonderful than I could have imagined.

Three children, 15 years, and countless memories later, I can honestly say I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Suz, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’d be lost without you. But, you knew that, didn’t you?

Happy Anniversary.

Since it’s summer and there’s nothing but re-runs on I’ve been channel surfing more than usual. Last night I happened to catch a speech by Muslim dissident Irshad Manji on C-SPAN. What a gutsy broad! Ultimately, I think she’s a leftist with whom I would disagree on many things. Despite her references to Ghandi and Martin Luther King, I was happy to learn in the Q&A portion that she is not a pacifist.

Watching the speech reminds me of Natan Sharansky’s observation in The Case for Democracy that the difference between the left and the right in the free world is so tiny. From the perspective of a dissident, we in free societies don’t realize how much we have in common.

Below is a link to Manji’s speech. Unfortunately, C-SPAN doesn’t archive these things as long as they should, so I’m not sure how long it will work.

Irshad Manji on the Reformation of Islam (watch with RealPlayer)

Irshad Manji speaks at the American Library Association Annual Conference about the liberal reformation of Islam. Ms. Manji is the author of “The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith.” In the book, the author critiques her religion and advocates liberal reforms. 6/25/2007: WASHINGTON, DC

Here’s more video of Irshad Manji from the Glenn Beck Show, via YouTube: