Is America Addicted to War?

Is America Addicted to War?
The top 5 reasons why we keep getting into foolish fights.
BY STEPHEN M. WALT | APRIL 4, 2011

The United States started out as 13 small and vulnerable colonies clinging to the east coast of North America. Over the next century, those original 13 states expanded all the way across the continent, subjugating or exterminating the native population and wresting Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico. It fought a bitter civil war, acquired a modest set of overseas colonies, and came late to both world wars. But since becoming a great power around 1900, it has fought nearly a dozen genuine wars and engaged in countless military interventions.

Yet Americans think of themselves as a peace-loving people, and we certainly don't regard our country as a "warrior nation" or "garrison state." Teddy Roosevelt was probably the last U.S. president who seemed to view war as an activity to be welcomed (he once remarked that "A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace"), and subsequent presidents always portray themselves as going to war with great reluctance, and only as a last resort.

In 2008, Americans elected Barack Obama in part because they thought he would be different from his predecessor on a host of issues, but especially in his approach to the use of armed force. It was clear to nearly everyone that George W. Bush had launched a foolish and unnecessary war in Iraq, and then compounded the error by mismanaging it (and the war in Afghanistan too). So Americans chose a candidate who had opposed Bush's war in Iraq and could bring U.S. commitments back in line with our resources. Above all, Americans thought Obama would be a lot more thoughtful about where and how to use force, and that he understood the limits of this crudest of policy tools. The Norwegian Nobel Committee seems to have thought so too, when they awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize not for anything he had done, but for what it hoped he might do henceforth.

Yet a mere two years later, we find ourselves back in the fray once again. Since taking office, Obama has escalated U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and launched a new war against Libya. As in Iraq, the real purpose of our intervention is regime change at the point of a gun. At first we hoped that most of the guns would be in the hands of the Europeans, or the hands of the rebel forces arrayed against Muammar al-Qaddafi, but it's increasingly clear that U.S. military forces, CIA operatives and foreign weapons supplies are going to be necessary to finish the job.

Moreover, as Alan Kuperman of the University of Texas and Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune have now shown, the claim that the United States had to act to prevent Libyan tyrant Muammar al-Qaddafi from slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Benghazi does not stand up to even casual scrutiny. Although everyone recognizes that Qaddafi is a brutal ruler, his forces did not conduct deliberate, large-scale massacres in any of the cities he has recaptured, and his violent threats to wreak vengeance on Benghazi were directed at those who continued to resist his rule, not at innocent bystanders. There is no question that Qaddafi is a tyrant with few (if any) redemptive qualities, but the threat of a bloodbath that would "[stain] the conscience of the world" (as Obama put it) was slight.

It remains to be seen whether this latest lurch into war will pay off or not, and whether the United States and its allies will have saved lives or squandered them. But the real question we should be asking is: Why does this keep happening? Why do such different presidents keep doing such similar things? How can an electorate that seemed sick of war in 2008 watch passively while one war escalates in 2009 and another one gets launched in 2011? How can two political parties that are locked in a nasty partisan fight over every nickel in the government budget sit blithely by and watch a president start running up a $100 million per day tab in this latest adventure? What is going on here?

Here are my Top 5 Reasons Why America Keeps Fighting Foolish Wars:

1. Because We Can.
The most obvious reason that the United States keeps doing these things is the fact that it has a remarkably powerful military, especially when facing a minor power like Libya. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, when you've got hundreds of planes, smart bombs, and cruise missiles, the whole world looks like a target set. So when some thorny problem arises somewhere in the world, it's hard to resist the temptation to "do something!"

It is as if the president has big red button on his desk, and then his aides come in and say, "There's something really nasty happening to some unfortunate people, Mr. President, but if you push that button, you can stop it. It might cost a few hundred million dollars, maybe even a few billion by the time we are done, but we can always float a bit more debt. As long as you don't send in ground troops, the public will probably go along, at least for awhile and there's no danger that anybody will retaliate against us -- at least not anytime soon -- because the bad guys (who are really nasty, by the way) are also very weak. Our vital interests aren't at stake, sir, so you don't have to do anything. But if you don't push the button lots of innocent people will die. The choice is yours, Mr. President."

It would take a very tough and resolute president -- or one with a clear set of national priorities and a deep understanding of the uncertainties of warfare -- to resist that siren song.

Of course, like his predecessors, Obama justifies his resort to force by invoking America's special place in the world. In the usual rhetoric of "American exceptionalism," he couched it in terms of U.S. values, its commitment to freedom, etc. But the truly exceptional thing about America today is not our values (and certainly not our dazzling infrastructure, high educational standards, rising middle-class prosperity, etc.); it is the concentration of military power in the hands of the president and the eroding political constraints on its employment. (For an elegant skewering of the "American exceptionalism" argument, see Andrew Sullivan here).

2. The U.S. Has No Serious Enemies.
A second factor that permits the United States to keep waging these optional wars is the fact that the end of the Cold War left the United States in a remarkably safe position. There are no great powers in the Western hemisphere; we have no "peer competitors" anywhere (though China may become one sooner if we keep squandering our power foolishly); and there is no country anywhere that could entertain the idea of attacking America without inviting its own destruction. We do face a vexing terrorism problem, but that danger is probably exaggerated, is partly a reaction to our tendency to meddle in other countries, and is best managed in other ways. It's really quite ironic: Because the American homeland is safe from serious external dangers (which is a good thing), Americans have the luxury of going abroad "in search of monsters to destroy" (which is not). If Americans were really worried about having to defend our own soil against a powerful adversary, we wouldn't be wasting time and money on feel-good projects like the Libyan crusade. But our exceptionally favorable geopolitical position allows us to do these things, even when they don't make a lot of strategic sense.

3. The All-Volunteer Force.
A third enabling factor behind our addiction to adventurism is the all-volunteer force. By limiting military service only to those individuals who volunteer to do it, public opposition to wars of choice is more easily contained. Could Bush or Obama have kept the Iraq and Afghanistan wars going if most young Americans had to register for a draft, and if the sons and daughters of Wall Street bankers were being sent in harm's way because they got an unlucky number in the draft? I very much doubt it.

By the way, I am not saying that the AVF is a bad idea that should be chucked, as there are a number of good arguments in its favor. Nonetheless, the AVF is one of those features of the contemporary U.S. national security order that makes the frequent resort to force politically feasible.

4. It's the Establishment, Stupid.
A fourth reason we keep meddling all over the world is the fact that the foreign-policy establishment is hard-wired in favor of "doing something." Foreign-policy thinking in Washington is dominated either by neoconservatives (who openly proclaim the need to export "liberty" and never met a war they didn't like) or by "liberal interventionists" who are just as enthusiastic about using military power to solve problems, provided they can engineer some sort of multilateral cover for it. Liberal interventionists sometimes concede that the United States can't solve every problem (at least not at the same time), but they still think that the United States is the "indispensable" nation and they want us to solve as many of the world's problems as we possibly can.

These worldviews are developed, promulgated, and defended by a network of think tanks, committees, public policy schools, and government agencies that don't always agree on what should be done (or which problems deserve most priority) but that are all committed to using U.S. power a lot. In short, our foreign policy is shaped by a bipartisan class of foreign policy do-gooders who spend years out of power maneuvering to get in, and spend their time in office trying to advance whatever their own pet project(s) might be. Having scratched and clawed to get themselves on the inside, the people who run our foreign policy are not likely to counsel restraint, or to suggest that the United States and the rest of the world might be better off if Washington did a bit less. After all, what's the point of being a big shot in Washington if you can't use all that power to try to mold the world to your liking?

Compared with most Americans, this is a wealthy, privileged, highly educated group of people and most of them are personally insulated from the consequences of the policies they advocate (i.e., with a few exceptions, their kids don't serve in the military -- see No. 3). Advocates of intervention are unlikely to suffer severe financial reverses or face long-term career penalties if some foreign war goes badly; they'll just go back to the same think-tank sinecures when their term of service is over.

By the way, lurking underneath the Establishment consensus on foreign-policy activism is the most successful Jedi mind trick that the American right ever pulled. Since the mid-1960s, American conservatism has waged a relentless and successful campaign to convince U.S. voters that it is wasteful, foolish, and stupid to pay taxes to support domestic programs here at home, but it is our patriotic duty to pay taxes to support a military establishment that costs more than all other militaries put together and that is used not to defend American soil but to fight wars mostly on behalf of other people. In other words, Americans became convinced that it was wrong to spend tax revenues on things that would help their fellow citizens (like good schools, health care, roads, and bridges, high-speed rail, etc.), but it was perfectly OK to tax Americans (though of course not the richest Americans) and spend the money on foreign wars. And we bought it. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be an effective mechanism to force the president to actually face and confront the trade-offs between the money he spends on optional wars and the domestic programs that eventually have to be cut back home. Which brings me to No. 5.

5. Congress Has Checked Out.
The authority to declare war is given to Congress, not the president, but that authority has been steadily usurped ever since World War II. Although the Constitution could not be clearer on this point, modern presidents clearly feel no constraints about ordering U.S. forces to attack other countries, or even to fully inform Congress as to what we might be doing in secret. In practice, therefore, the vaunted system of "checks and balances" supposedly enshrined in our Constitution simply doesn't operate anymore, which means that the use of America's military power has been left solely to the presidents and a handful of ambitious advisors (see No. 4 above). This is not to say that public opinion doesn't figure into their calculations (i.e., they've got pollsters and political advisors too), but it is hardly a binding constraint.

I've no doubt that one could add more items to this list (e.g., the passive press, the military-industrial complex, etc.), but the items already noted go a long way to explaining why the supposedly peace-loving United States keeps finding itself in all these small but draining wars.

Back in the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama said that his favorite movie was The Godfather. And if I recall correctly, he said his second favorite movie was The Godfather, Part II. But his presidency is starting to play out like Part III of that famed trilogy, where Michael Corleone rails against the fates that have foiled his attempt to make the Corleone family legit.

I can just hear Obama saying it: "Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in." Precisely.


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/04/is_america_addicted_to_war?page=full

How the Senate was bait and switched into war

How the Senate was bait and switched into war
By: Conn Carroll 04/04/11 3:26 PM
Associate Editor Of Commentary

Last week, minutes after President Barack Obama explained to the nation why he took the country to war, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) posted a statement on YouTube first noting Obama's 2007 claim that "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" and then adding: "Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to heed his own advice. He has ignored our constitution and engaged us in a military conflict without congressional debate and approval."

But the day before on This Week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News' Jake Tapper: "The United States Senate called for a no-fly zone in the resolution that it passed on March 1st."

So who is right? Did the president go to war without any approval from the Senate, as Sen. Paul says? Or did the Senate approve the president's use of military force, as Secretary Clinton claims?

The answer involves a secretive Senate procedure known as "hotlining."  Hotlining is a system that allows legislation to pass by "unanimous consent," usually in the evening, when almost no Senators are present.  Prior to a bill's consideration, the Democrat and Republican Cloakrooms send out hotline notices – automated phone calls and emails – to key staff.  The hotline notices typically include the bill number, so members can look it up and review its contents.  However, in the case of the Libya, the resolution was not made public until the day after the Senate approved it.

According to numerous congressional aides, almost no members knew about the no-fly zone language.  Most offices thought they were approving a different resolution – with the same sponsor and a nearly identical title – that had been circulating among congressional offices for two weeks.

In a February 22, email obtained by the Examiner, an aide to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) sent a resolution to the staff of members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee condemning human rights abuses in Libya.  There was no mention of a no-fly zone.

On March 1st, at 4:03pm, a different resolution was "hotlined."  The only information provided in the hotline email was the title: "S. Res. __ A resolution strongly condemning the gross and systematic violations of human rights in Libya, including violent attacks on protesters demanding democratic reforms, and for other purposes."

But what Senate offices did not know was that the sponsors had secretly slipped into the resolution the following sentence:

"[the Senate] urges the United Nations Security Council to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory"

Most staff assumed the "hotline" referred to the previous draft, and had no reason to place a "hold" on a resolution condemning Libya Human Rights abuses.  At 6:30 pm, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took to a near empty chamber, and introduced the brand new resolution and asked that it be approved without debate or vote.  By 6:31, the resolution was passed.

The resolution is non-binding and has no force of law, but that did not stop pro-war Senators from rushing out to claim that the Senate had just approved military action: "There is a bipartisan consensus building to provide assistance to liberated areas of Libya and to work with our allies to enforce a no-fly zone," a Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) statement released that night read.

Senators more skeptical of military action where the United States has no national interest felt deceived. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tells The Examiner: "Clearly, the process was abused. You don't use a hotline to bait and switch the country into a military conflict. There is no more difficult decision than whether to put our men and women in uniform in harm's way. With no imminent threat to the national security of the United States, the President should have asked for authorization and Congress should have had a thorough debate."

Sen. Paul is not giving up without a fight. Last Wednesday he introduced an amendment to a small business bill that would adopt then-candidate Obama's 2007 statement above as "the sense of the Senate." Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) shut down the entire Senate to avoid debating the issue. But Sen. Paul's motion is till the pending business of the Senate. With Senate action needed to avid a government shutdown next week, Paul, and the American people, may just yet get a debate on military action in Libya.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/04/how-senate-was-bait-and-switched-war#ixzz1Ig9pHszH

Trump: If We Don’t Take Iraq’s Oil, U.S. Soldiers ‘Would Have Died In Vain’

"Welfare millionaire (and hair plug support system) Donald Trump offers his riff on the "Kick their ass/take their gas" theme. I'd like to hear him explain exactly what it means to be "de-neutered."" -- William N. Grigg


Trump: If We Don't Take Iraq's Oil, U.S. Soldiers 'Would Have Died In Vain'

In his quixotic search for attention, likely GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has added a foreign policy leg to his farcical platform. Revealing his thoughts on the Iraq war to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last week, the real estate mogul boiled his policy down to an argument of "to the victor belonged the spoils." Fearing that "15 minutes after we leave," Iran would tromp into Iraq and "take the oil," Trump argued the U.S. should "stay and keep the oil," "take what's necessary for us and we pay our self back $1.5 trillion or more."

O'Reilly later mocked Trump's policy on Fox and Friends: "You'd basically be re-invading the country you already invaded to try and get their oil. Come on, can you imagine the world reaction to that?" Unswayed, Trump doubled-down in a Fox and Friends segment this morning. Still convinced Iran will pounce on the oil fields once the U.S. withdraws, Trump insisted that if we don't "take the oil," the 5,885 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq "would have died in vain":

TRUMP: I very simply said that Iran is going to takeover Iraq, and if that's going to happen, we should just stay there and take the oil. They want the oil, and why should we? We de-neutered Iraq, Iran is going to walk in, take it over, take over the second largest oil fields in the world. That's going to happen. That would mean that all of those soldiers that have died and been wounded and everything else would have died in vain– and I don't want that to happen. I want their parents and their families to be proud.

Watch it:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201104040005


Trump's apprentice-level understanding is not unique and is gathering support within the right-wing. Echoing Trump, Fox News host Glenn Beck suggested that President George W. Bush was a " bad leader" for failing to get enough "oil to repay us for what we did" in Iraq and that our Libyan operations should protect our oil interests. His network colleague Sean Hannity proposed re-invading Iraq to "take all their oil." Insisting the U.S. gave up oil in Iraq for "the guilt of being a superpower," right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh stated, "I wish we were going for oil" in Libya.

Despite his desire to exploit the Iraq war for oil, Trump should learn that while private U.S. companies like Halliburton are exploiting Iraqi oil for profit, the U.S. government is a signatory to the Hague Conventions and thus cannot confiscate private property as an occupying power. If Trump finally decides to run, perhaps he should take his own advice on foreign policy: " don't be so stupid."


http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/04/trump-iraq-oil-soldiers-died-vain/

Narcissist-in-Chief claims he's the most successful President in the last 50 years

[[  See Attachment. ]]

Narcissist-in-Chief claims he's the most successful President in the last 50 years Scotty Starnes | April 5, 2011 at 2:12 PM | Tags: 2012 presidential campaign, liar-in-chief, narcissist, President Obama, re-election campaign | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4Yf

I am the greatest...at spending YOUR money!

If his definition of success means bankrupting America, then yes, he is the most successful in our 235 year history.

From Politico:

President Barack Obama offered a sober assessment of his 2012 campaign to supporters Monday night, admitting that the "newness" was gone but urging his grassroots troops to organize with the same fervor that propelled him to victory in 2008.

On a conference call with hundreds of organizers, volunteers and campaign operatives, Obama played up the threats posed by Republicans to his agenda while boasting of "hav[ing] had the most successful legislative initiative of any president over the last 50 years."

The call was the culmination of a day-long roll-out of his re-election campaign, which began with the 5 a.m. release of a video entitled "It Begins With Us." That was followed by an email to supporters, the filing of re-election paperwork with the Federal Election Commission and a more exclusive rally-the-troops conference call with top donors conducted by campaign manager Jim Messina.

"I'm fired up, I don't know about everybody else," Obama said after being patched through by the White House switchboard to a core group of campaign workers that pulled off an upset victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries nearly three years ago and went on to defeat Republican John McCain.

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Re: Wringing-the-Neck of Empty Ritual.

John,

I am well aware of your previous claims as to why you ordered YOUR New Constitution as you did. I simply wanted to point out to those 300-plus million people who you deem to be less intellectual than yourself how ludicrous such a construction is.

On 04/05/2011 11:56 AM, NoEinstein wrote:

Jonathan:  I've answered that same question numbers of times. Obviously, you've not read very far back in my thread.  The logical reason for the order of my New Constitution is because I used the original constitution as the model.  My first step was to transcribe the Constitution into my computer.  I did this in the days before there was big cut and paste.  Only by transcribing the Constitution, one key stroke at a time, does one come to realize how crudely written the Constitution actually is.  Except for the (after-thought) Bill of Rights, there is very little other than an organizational structure in the majority of the Constitution.  Wherever possible, I 'fluffed out' the document in those locations where the "subject heading" was there.  That's why Article III is so much longer.  Anyone wishing to find out about the Judiciary can still locate that in Article III. And anyone wishing to see if their rights are still there can look for the clarified and expanded Bill of Rights and Amendments.  I invite the readers to look at what I've written one sentence at a time.  The citizens—as individuals, not as 'puppet' members of biased groups—will have incredibly more power, and more civil liberties!  When the size of government goes DOWN, civil liberties go UP!  — J. A. Armistead — Patriot 

On Apr 4, 1:30 pm, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote: 

John,  I have a simple question that even someone with your incredibly superior intelligence <g> should be able to answer.  How is it YOUR New Constitution has a "1st Amendment" when it has yet to be viewed in its entirety, let alone ratified?  On 04/04/2011 10:19 AM, NoEinstein wrote:  

Folks:  A blushing, almost-kid-like Glenn Beck was on Bill O'Reilly's TV program this week.  It was discussed whether The Donald's ideas for dealing with our economic woes make him a viable candidate for President.  O'Reilly said, "Yes."   But Beck said he would prefer a candidate who "just speaks the truth" (rather than one who has an actual PLAN that works).  As a regular laugher (mostly) at Glenn Beck's e4 shows, his blackboards and shuffling of photos to incriminate people have gotten old fast.  His memorable shows are now about one per month, where they used to be about one out of three.  In essence, he has run out of material.  His having �oh-isn't-that-sweat� shows like Mike Huckabee isn't improving the chances the USA will survive.  Nor is Beck�s delusion that our present broke, broke government can be fixed if only the voters can be told... "the truth".  Beck is going on faith that towns (like in Ohio) can be saved and countries, too, if only the good people in his viewing audience can get the word... 

At Fox News only two people stand out as selling the conservative route to salvation for the USA: Stu Varney and Andrew Napolitano. Sean Hannity continues to shoot-himself-in-the-foot by having Bob Beckel, the socialist, Obama-loving traitor as his regular guest. "Bob is a good friend," Hannity says.  Anyone having Beckel as a friend isn't fit to have air time in this country.  My New Constitution says: 

"1st Amendment:  No law shall be made regarding the establishment of peaceable religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, but government, its campaigns, processes, slogans, and disbursements shall be secular.  No law nor private or civil action shall abridge: the freedom of speech; ***the freedom of a fair and pro-democracy press or other medium; the right of People to peaceably assemble; and the right of any Citizen or group to petition government or any of its branches or departments for redress of grievances.  Citizens so petitioning government shall receive appropriate, relevant, timely, comprehensive, helpful and just responses from proper authorities who have thoroughly read, understood, and addressed each salient aspect of the grievances or requests for directions or clarifications.  Failure to so respond to a rightful petition for redress of a grievance shall, on a single provable instance, terminate the apt one�s employment, especially those in management or public office�including judges and justices�who ignore, frustrate or give the run-around to any competent Citizen who has been diligent in having a grievance properly addressed, or in having his or her civil rights fully upheld.  No judge or justice shall presume that by performing the above required duties, that they in any way might be compromising their objectivity or fairness in court; justice be not �blind�, but well informed.  Freedom of the press or other medium mandates that there be reasonable truthfulness in reporting.  Wanton distortion of the truth, or deliberate omission of the truth�except in cases of obvious fiction or satire�is prohibited.  Stating or implying that a particular news medium has a collective voice (we) or position on any issue is prohibited, as for example via: anonymous editorials; regularly occurring accompanying comments; commentary programs financed by, or ideologically screened by, the same news medium; editorials named as being authored by management; editorial comments by others that are in any way ideologically censored, omitted or screened; or by comments occurring at specific times or designated locations that most would come to associate with the management of such medium, even if such are innocuous.  No medium shall be a forum for promoting the ideology of its management or owners, nor shall they employ anyone who uses such job to hawk their personal political preferences�at risk of loss of license or closure of the business.  Flagrantly editing news to promote the ideology of management is a felony.  No medium shall analyze, assess, summarize, or make subjective judgments about any pending election or referendum.  Nor shall they invite others outside of the media to do so.  But factual, thorough coverage of the candidates or referenda issues�on an as occurs basis�is allowed, provided there are no comments, nor actions, as above, and provided the same unbiased coverage is given to all of the candidates or to all of the referenda issues.  It shall be a 10 year felony to repress truthful news reporting in any medium by threatening legal action.  No medium can be sued for libel for presenting material authored by others, but if a person is harmed by the medium�s content, they shall be allowed to reply�without editing�in that medium.  Each medium shall respond to breaking news without considering the response of any other medium.  Injuries due to improper news coverage or non coverage shall not be excused by the media response.  A medium reporting on government shall do so thoroughly, objectively, and with detachment� being neither laudatory nor critical by form, and not repressing thoughtful dissent nor its coverage.  Every medium shall favor the truth over supposition, without parity nor bias.  False or deceptive commercial advertising is prohibited.  Deliberate use by any candidate, their staffs or election committees, of false or deceptive campaign speeches, slogans, advertisements, humor, or innuendo is a felony.  No organization, nor part of the media, nor any special interest group(s) shall in any way endorse a slate of candidates for public office; flagrant violation is a felony.  No medium shall display active public records without the free consent of the apt parties." 

"The freedom of a fair and pro democracy press..." means that NO person hired by the media�as consultants, commentators or otherwise� shall be allowed air time or print space to promote socialist or communist ideals without that medium forfeiting their license.  Folks, "FAIR AND BALANCED" is pushing the USA to the brink of destruction! Unless and until FOX News begins talking about saving the USA rather than playing-up our many conflicts, for monetary (Jewish) gain, they aren't worthy of any "conservative" acclaim.  Britt Hume and Chris Wallace, et. al are hurting the USA with every liberal word they speak.  O'Reilly�on conversational rudeness alone (interrupting and wrongly summarizing what the guest wishes to say)�should be fired, immediately.  Apparently, if rudeness gets... viewers, FOX is in favor of it. 

I invite any of the readers to state views about FOX that might be positive.  For me, the corporate culture, there, is neutralizing most potentially helpful aspects. 

Respectfully submitted, 

� John A. Armistead �  Patriot 

AKA NoEinstein on Google's sci.physics 

Those who might be interested are invited to read my book: "The Shortest Distance; Harmony Through Prosperity."  Such is available at Amazon and B&  N. 

On Apr 1, 2:29 pm, NoEinstein<noeinst...@bellsouth.net>  wrote: 

Talk, alone, can�t save the US economy and social order. 

This week Glenn Beck compared Judaism and Islam.  He�s right that Jews are less harsh in dealing with �prohibited� activities than Muslims. But, apparently, Beck hasn�t considered the �hidden dangers� posed by the Jews in Israel that hurt the chances the world can avoid humanity- threatening conflicts.  To wit:  Following WWII, and the admittedly terrible Holocaust, Jews were a race without a nation.  Over the ages Jews had had legitimate claim to much of the Holy Land.  But that land had since ceded to those of the Muslim faith.  By force of armed conflict, Jews confiscated the land of Muslims without fair compensation.  Though they had the �nation� they so desired, it was a nation obtained by immoral acts, including murder, covetousness and grand theft.  In �celebration� of the new nation of Israel, the USA formed an alliance to protect Israel from armed aggression.  Isn�t it ironic that our country had not considered it� �worthy� to come to the aid of those Muslims driven from the Holy Land? 

Because the US regularly sides with Jewish crooks and uses our military might to neutralize those who are only seeking justice, the USA has become a despised nation.  Our capitalist successes have made us look like crooks in those realms, too.  Thousands of Americans have died and are dying in the wars being fought.  And perhaps millions of Americans, and that many more of our allies, are now living in fear of terrorism�  Such would NOT be the case if Jews hadn�t felt �entitled� to be crooks because of the Holocaust.  True to form, Jews take every opportunity for selfish gain, without considering the morality of their actions. 

Muslims deserve to be treated fairly.  Understandably, the nation of Israel is an affront to the moral sensibilities of Muslims.  My book, �The Shortest Distance; Harmony Through Prosperity�, touts how FAIR capitalist successes�evenly spread throughout all the peoples of the world�can foster world peace, harmony and prosperity.  Such successes can be more profound than ever experienced by the vast majority of Muslims.  *** As I 

 ..  read more » 

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The biggest obstacle to freedom and liberty is not knowing what freedom and liberty are.

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