In Ganjgal, Afghanistan September 7, 2009, four U.S. Marines were killed. The Marines were assisting Afghan forces in searching for weapons and then meeting village elders to plan police patrols. They were ambushed by rebel forces during the operation.

While it was the bullets of the “insurgents” that ended their lives, it was political correctness that killed them. U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls by the Marines to unleash fire at insurgents despite being told repeatedly that they were not near the village or civilians. These new rules are politically correct and were issued to avoid civilian casualties which risk alienating the Afghan population and jeopardizing the war effort. But General Stanley A. McChrystal and other top military officials have insisted air support and fire power would not be restricted when U.S. troops were under direct threat. Unfortunately, those warriors died because they were sent into a known hostile area and promised air support that never came.

Those brave Marines would be alive today if not for President Barack Obama’s support of these politically-correct military rules. These rules prevented the Marines from receiving the military back-up they needed for survival. Their pleas, “We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo…,” were ignored.

Gen. McChrystal has requested 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. Again our soldiers are contending with half-measures and lack of support. After months of receiving Gen. McChrystal’s recommendation, Mr. Obama has yet to make a decision and is wary of upsetting his far-left, anti-war proponents. Mr. Obama has signaled that he might send half the number of troops that were requested. Such a decision would be folly. Mr. Obama is not better equipped to make such a decision than Gen. McChrystal. The president has never so much as worn a pair of combat boots while the distinguished general has served in the military since he was 18-years-old. If Mr. Obama does indeed decide to send in only 20,000 troops, our enemy will be emboldened and our troops demoralized. The result will be more unnecessary deaths of our men in arms.

War is made by a state with laws. It is an act of imposing that will upon others who in turn resist. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are fiercely resisting that imposition of will which can only be stopped with sudden violence. So long as we are willing to impose our will upon those forces of terror, we will be at war. When at war, it is imperative to allow the military to do their job and destroy the enemy as quickly as possible. No war has ever been won by using less force than its opposition.

Half-measures cannot win wars. Half-measures were seen in Vietnam, which resulted not in a “bloodless war” but fully bloodied troops. President Lyndon Johnson’s micro-managed plan was to risk the lives of troops by using a “slow squeeze” play as recommended by his civilian advisors. This was in direct conflict with the senior military advisors’ “fast attack.” President Jimmy Carter used half-measures in the Iran Hostage Crisis that lasted 444 days, with a failed micro-managed rescue disaster in the sand, Operation Eagle Claw.  President Bill Clinton thought he could fight war with missiles, letting them destroy “baby-milk factories” in Iraq and hospitals in Serbia. Mr. Clinton denied Gen. Thomas Montgomery’s request for reinforcements, air support and armored vehicles in Mogadishu, where 18 American soldiers were killed and 77 wounded. Half-measures do not work.

Now, Mr. Obama thinks he can micro-manage the war in Afghanistan while also preventing the left-wing base from revolting. But according to Gen. George S. Patton Jr., “There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.” This is a formula for success.

President George W. Bush’s War on Terror was one of the most successful wars in the long history of war: more land was taken in less time, with the lowest loss of life. This result was due to Mr. Bush allowing the troops to destroy the enemy swiftly. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was over in a few months; it is the occupation that has lasted for years, which is to be expected. The occupation of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, likewise, took years.

Mr. Obama is more interested in protecting his image than saving the lives of our brave men and women who face death. The best way to get the troops out of Afghanistan is to trust Gen. McChrystal and comply with his recommendation. Those men are risking their lives, the least Mr. Obama can do is risk is his reputation.

Other Democratic leaders such as President Harry Truman and President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood how to conduct a war. They were willing to wage even total war when necessary, such as the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima. Full measures brought about full surrender. But, that was when Democrats were still fully committed to the founding principles of America. The modern Democratic Party is no longer loyal to America or its values. It is loyal only to political ambition and will sacrifice troops at its altar.

If al Qaeda and the Taliban are worth killing, then the United States must fight. If they are not, then our troops should return home and Afghanistan should suffer its fate under the Taliban. When the president knowingly sends troops into known hostile areas without the necessary support and they die, their blood is on his hands. Our American soldiers should not be sacrificed to satiate the wolf of appeasement.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host.

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The solution to winning the war in Afghanistan is to destroy the Taliban’s ability to make war, causing the decimation of the Taliban war machine. The Taliban’s supply lines are the poppy fields. Eliminating those fields as a source of income would strike a fatal blow to the Taliban.

The Taliban are mafia drug-lords wrapped in Middle-Eastern freedom-fighter apparel. They generate $100 to $150 million annually by imposing “taxes” on opium farmers.Selling and exporting opium raises $700 to $800 million annually for the Taliban.  This allows for the purchase of arms for insurgency, terrorism and black-market tyranny. Worldwide, Afghan heroin fuels 93 percent of a $65 billion trade, far surpassing all of Mexico, Southeast Asia and South America combined. The United Nations estimates between 15 to 21 million people use this highly addictive drug. Afghan heroin alone kills over 100,000 people each year, outweighing the U.S. combat losses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Grenada and Vietnam combined.

Our current policy of agricultural transformation allows the cultivation of opium poppies until economic incentives prompt farmers to take up other crops such as pomegranates and grapes. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2009 Annual Report, opium production has doubled under U.S. occupation and is so bountiful that the Taliban has reportedly stored 12,000 tons of opium, which can supply the entire world for three years. We need a new plan.

If the poppy fields in Afghanistan were eradicated, this would annihilate the Taliban’s primary source of funding. This in turn would eliminate their ability to corrupt the Karzi government, buy arms, cause terror, protect al-Qaeda and buy foreign influence. It is the single, clearest solution and would end the havoc in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan while devastating world heroin trafficking in a matter of weeks. This is a win-win strategy.

Proponents against the eradication of Afghanistan’s poppy fields argue that world demand will only increase production in other areas, making poppy destruction a useless endeavor. “If Afghanistan were suddenly wiped out as a producer of opium—by bad weather or a blight or eradication efforts—other parts of the world would simply emerge as new producers,” said Founding Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance Ethan Nadelmann. This assumption, while based on the law of supply and demand, ignores the difficulties associated with expanding any type of production from clearing and preparing new land and setting up irrigation. Moreover, counter-drug operations performed in the United States and elsewhere use crop eradication as a means. Focused on the drug factor alone, Mr. Nadelmann misses the larger point: Destroying Afghan’s poppy fields would bankrupt the Taliban, preventing them from resupplying arms and killing Americans.

Others believe increased Taliban recruitment is the primary objection to field destruction. U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are both on record saying that destroying the poppy fields would strengthen the Taliban and that every disenfranchised farmer would become a Taliban recruit. That may be the case with the devastation of one or two fields, but it will not be the case with total destruction of any and all poppy fields.

A counterargument to this is that when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan almost three decades ago, opium production increased in response to increased arms expenditures. This shows that the economic needs of the insurgent army drive production. Moreover, eight-years of permissiveness have allowed the Taliban to strengthen their forces to an all-time high. In fact, 2009 was the highest loss of life for U.S. and NATO forces. Permitting opium production did not eliminate or curb the Taliban. Another point is that when seasonal cultivation ends, the Taliban gains strengths as most of the opium farmers become fighters and take up arms after the harvest.

One of the fiercest arguments against the destruction of Afghanistan poppy fields is that if opium production is eliminated it will destroy the Afghanistan economy. First, no one makes that argument for Mexican drug-dealers or marijuana cultivators in California.  Second, if the crops were removed the Taliban would collapse, Afghanistan would become safe and foreign investment money would flow into that country. More to the point, Afghan farmer’s gross revenues from opium is about $1 billion dollars according to 2007 U.N. estimates, while our 2007 U.S. Military operations cost taxpayers $35 billion. Therefore, the plan should be: burn the fields, crush the Taliban, send the boys home, send one billion in aid and save $34 billion a year.

The U.S. dominates the air in Afghanistan. Poppy fields grow in full sunlight, and forests do not obscure the poppy fields. Eradication efforts will not be hampered by a lack of discovery. Modern herbicides are quite safe and effective, as well as the use of tractors to plow the fields under. When the Afghan farmer is faced with the choice of taking U.S. assistance to grow legal crops or face total eradication of his crops and imprisonment, he will be far more motivated than he currently is to switch his crops.

In the past, the United States did not have the ability to eradicate those fields. Now, we are the occupier of Afghanistan and have the capacity and the duty to destroy this trade. Every poppy that grows empowers the Taliban with more artillery that will be used to kill American soldiers and Marines. No one has more power than Mr. Obama to dispatch the largest source of heroin export in the world. If he really wants get out of Afghanistan and cares about our troops, he must destroy those fields.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host

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Eh, maybe, maybe not. Perhaps we’re not looking at this story objectively. In fact, there is too much emotion involved in how people are reacting to the possibility that this international law enforcement organization could become a centralized police power. Unless there is such a drastic plan in place, it just isn’t feasible but some things are always worthy of investigation. INTERPOL’s purpose is to serve as a hub for information sharing, intelligence, training of law enforcement agencies worldwide. It’s no different than cops back home; when a call takes them to another jurisdiction they call ahead and ask the guys at the other end to be on the alert. INTERPOL is pretty much like that; it helps agencies track statistical data as well, assists in the search for fugitives and their apprehension. INTERPOL in that context is not a bad thing. The fact is that amending EO-12425 is not as significant in itself because there are some other elements missing at this time.

If you look at INTERPOL from a different perspective, say, how could they actually accomplish having all of these powers that we are so afraid of then we must see how that is structured. One of the agency’s accomplishments in 2009 was the successful introduction of the INTERPOL passport. This passport is designed to function just like any other passport however it has been enhanced to afford expediency for teams or individuals who are invited to any of the member countries, all 188 of them, to pass through customs and passport control without interference. I suppose these individuals must be thoroughly vetted before being given such easy access into a country. The US sends plenty of FBI people overseas to assist in counterterrorism investigations all the time but I am sure that these teams can get expedited passage with their credentials. Still, law enforcement travel is tricky so countries track these individuals. Does such a passport mean fast entry but how about monitoring movement in country? Maybe there is something in the language of INTERPOL’s Secretary General that got me thinking:

“When member countries ask INTERPOL for assistance to prevent, investigate, or respond to any terrorist act, serious crime or natural disaster, the safety and security of their citizens may depend on INTERPOL being in place as fast as possible,” said Secretary General Noble.

“That a person is travelling with an INTERPOL passport for official business should be all the information a country needs in order to grant them access. By agreeing to waive visas for INTERPOL passport holders, member countries will ultimately be assisting themselves,” added Mr Noble.

INTERPOL is entering the much needed aspect of police peacekeeping and peace-building operations. You’ve probably heard the term peacekeeping more in relation to police actions such as the intervention in the Balkans of the 1990s. I am saying ‘much-needed’ for a legitimate reason. The importance of an international police force that will help military elements establish and maintain the rule of law in occupied countries has been debated and suggested for many years. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 at first appeared to be beneficial and it was expected that the population would be cooperative. The intention is always to establish the rule of law as soon as combat operations are stable or stop in order to assist the local people re-enter a period of rehabilitation. War is stressful and disrupts the normal lives of people; that’s a given. Stability operations in Iraq went awry five weeks after Coalition troops invaded. Forget the search for Saddam Hussein; the changes going on in Iraqi society took place quickly and violently. Suddenly Iraqis were left with the euphoric feeling of freedom from a tyrant then moved on to the realization that without those social and political controls they could do what they wanted.

This is a good thing because there is a need for a dedicated constabulary to deploy not only in peace time but during the stability phase following the cessation of military operations. It is also the stuff the U.S. is attempting to do in Iraq and Afghanistan; to rebuild their countries from the bottom up. The International Criminal Court – which seeks jurisdiction in the U.S. as it has in other countries – would be more involved in American law and order at all but then it needs an enforcement branch in order to be effective. At any rate, something is missing in the equation. The ICC goes hand in hand with the UN (under war crimes tribunal, not for the persecution – prosecution of individual parties but of countries) and INTERPOL is wrapped nicely inside that circle. The question is how realistic is the possibility of these forces deploying to the U.S.

Theory:

Get acquainted with these terms; stability operations or nation building.
To have a foreign police force deploy to the U.S. it must be due to an invitation by that country or international police authority for them to come. What is different here is the absence of a crisis big enough to warrant such an invitation. After all, that is what happens to other countries, such as it happened in the Balkans, Iraq or Afghanistan where political and military instability threaten the stability of neighboring states or faces total collapse. Given the number of small incidents occurring nationwide after the Delta flight attack, a power grid shutdown during winter, an outbreak of the flu in Florida, civil disobedience, etc. could be considered emergencies or crises that can be handled by a peaceful people and there is no need for an international intervention. What if the economy collapses? Maybe as events accumulate over time things will not look so good for us. Scattered terrorist attacks may give the perception that we are in such trouble that we must outsource our security from others as we have done before. If such a police force is vetted so have passports that allow them to enter any member country easily, does the U.S. have any input on their background?
Worst yet can someone’s background be falsified? Are we sure those cops are really who they say they are?
Just wondering.

Executive Order 12425

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-amending-executive-order-12425

Order on Interpol inside U.S. irks Conservatives

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/world/31interpol.html

The White House press release of executive order establishing the council of governors

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-signs-executive-order-establishing-council-governors

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
Obama gives foreign cops new police powers in U.S.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120363

http://www.interpol.int/

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We shut the aircraft down and what we saw was 350 plus people ranging in ages from 6 months to old and gray standing silently at a fence watching our every movement. I walked around the nose of my aircraft a mere 150 feet away from this crowd, I gave a simple smile and raised my arm up over my head and was greeted with the most substantial roar of levity that I have ever heard in my life. 350 plus people were cheering. Not because I play an instrument in some notable band, acted in a big Hollywood movie, or wrote some famous novel. They were cheering because I am part of something bigger than that. I am part of a team made up of men and women who all wear a uniform of some kind symbolized by a colorful patch known as the Stars and Stripes. A team that helped liberate an entire culture of people almost killed off because they were different. Like the Americans were to the Jews we are to the Kurds.

Before I ramble anymore about this occasion I feel that I am obligated to expose you to what happened to these people. Halajba, the town we flew too, sits directly on the Iranian border. In fact almost a one quarter of the town is in Iran. During the 1980s there was a conflict known as the Iran/Iraq war. This city was at the frontlines of this battle. Historically speaking the Kurdish people have been oppressed and looked down upon by their Arab counterparts in Iraq because they are not Arabic. They are different. They are a melting pot of many different beliefs; their cultural heritage stems across every religion known to man. This diversity sets them apart and makes them great. Well Islamic Arabs known as Sunni and Shia don’t have a good history of liking people who are different. The perfect illustration of this is the fact that the Sunni and Shia can’t even agree on their own religion. Minor differences between these two branches such as how many times a day they pray, certain important figures in their history, and different holidays is grounds enough for them to not even like each other. Now the Kurds have always been at the bottom of this hierarchy; Saddam was a Sunni and for many years the Sunni Arabs had a good life. The Shia and Kurds were oppressed by this regime quite fiercely with the The Kurds receiving the brunt of it. During the Iran/Iraq war Saddam bombed many cities like this without remorse simply because they were Kurdish. Many ruined cityscapes still litter this country side from that conflict. If that wasn’t enough in 1987 Saddam organized an operation completely aimed at eradicating or otherwise imprisoning every Kurd in the country. It began with interment into concentration style camps outside of the major cities. This was followed by the bombing of Kurdish cities. All this climaxed in 1988 when Saddam launched a massive chemical weapons attack which left over 5,000 fatalities in Halajba alone. The final toll of Kurdish fatalities ranged from 300,000 to 500,000 killed. Thousands more wounded and imprisoned. All this was because they were different.

Today was a side of the war that I had never before seen. I saw the fighting last time I was here. The tracers illuminating the night skies, the bombs and hellfires being dropped on insurgents while inserting fresh troops and pulling out the dead and wounded ones. I saw the fear and terror that people can leash upon one another. The awesome horrific sight of what firepower can do to soft skin targets of both friendlies and enemies. I was prepared to go to war again. To see and experience those horrific moments not often spoken about by those who were there. Today I stood in awe as I was thanked, not by a passerby at the airport or some restaurant I was eating at, but by an entire nation of people that we as a team helped save and preserve. Because of our efforts, which started after the first Gulf War to present, these people have emerged as a supreme culture of individuals at once on the brink of extinction. This is no longer a war as far as a traditional definition would go; it is about the people of Iraq now. It’s not about bullets and bombs but handshakes and smiles. We have done our job and we did it well and I don’t care what any peace loving tree hugging hippy says after watching CNN because today I was personally thanked by more people of another country then that of my own country. If that is not a testament to the job that we have done here than I do not know what is. These are free people who have lived with 3,000 years of oppression. They are free because of our efforts. They are free because of our sacrifice.

Feel free to pass this story and pictures along to every American. It is our duty to make sure that they know the truth about what we are doing over here and the results of those efforts. The liberal media would try and disgrace our sacrifice or otherwise downplay the importance of our mission in Iraq and that is just not fair to the fighting men and women of the United States of America. This is a reminder to those liberal hippies that sometimes there are people in this world who need a good ass kicking to help save the little guy and no one does it better than an American Soldier. Hooah!

SGT Christopher A. Hoffert
Afghanistan ‘04-’05, Iraq ‘06-’07, and ‘09-’10
Alpha Company 3rd Battalion 25th Combat Aviation Brigade
FOB Diamondback, Iraq
3 Oct 2009

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By Michael Fowler

Since the sixties, Noam Chomsky has been calling the United States an imperialist nation and continues to do so, now saying U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are imperialist. The purpose of Mr. Chomsky’s’ philosophy is to destroy the legitimacy of any and all acts of force by an ethical, lawful state. In essence, Mr. Chomsky asserts that such a state is identical to barbarians who use force for self-interest, i.e. dictators and fascists. By doing this, Mr. Chomsky is willing to put heroes such as policemen and soldiers on the same level as villains such as murderers and terrorists.

According to Mr. Chomsky’s twisted reasoning, “…torture has been routine practice from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and then beyond, as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire” — as George Washington called the new Republic” (The Torture Memos, Chomsky, May 24, 2009). He believes that George Bush was simply following some “secret” mandate from Washington to expand the empire through the use of torture. To buttress his case, he cites the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis,“Adams as the grand strategist who laid the foundations for the Bush Doctrine: the doctrine that ‘expansion is the path to security’” (The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism, Chomsky, December 3, 2009). Yes, John Adams (1735 – 1826) is responsible for the War on Terror, not the 19 terrorists who orchestrated the takeover of four commercial planes on September 11, 2001, killing thousands of innocent people. You can learn a lot at college.

Mr. Chomsky slanders Washington as a vile Machiavellian: ”A prince that acquires new territories and removes the natives to give his people room will be remembered as the father of the nation (Machiavelli).’ And George Washington agreed. He wanted to be the father of the nation. His view was that ‘the gradual extension of our settlement will as certainly cause the savage as the wolf to retire, both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape.” (Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond, Chomsky, Boston University, April 24, 2008)

Mr. Chomsky bases this statement from Letter to James Duane dated September 7, 1783.  In his letter, Washington was appealing for a non-violent resolution with the Indians and to find peaceful means of living with them on a common land, not advocating war. “As the Country, is large enough to contain us all; and as we are disposed to be kind to them and to partake of their Trade…draw a veil over what is past and establish a boundary line between them and us beyond which we will endeavor to restrain our People from Hunting or Settling.” Washington’s intent to Duane was clear: peaceful means of coexistence.

His thought that directly precedes Mr. Chomsky lifted quote is this, “I am clear in my opinion, … of being upon good terms with the Indians, and the propriety of purchasing their Lands in preference to attempting to drive them by force of arms out of their Country; which as we have already experienced is like driving the Wild Beasts of the Forest…”  In other words, if you make war with the Indians, they will scatter in the country side and return to hunt you down, as they are to be respected as is the wolf.

Mr. Chomsky lacks credibility because he has to rely on fabrication of events in order to support his opinions. Fabrication is part of the leftist anti-War movement which is really the leftist/socialist “Make America Surrender” movement.

The second part is asserting that equal actions (war and terrorism) are equal in ethics.  Everyone agrees that murder is evil, and murder is caused by killing. However, not all killing is evil—certainly, accidents and self-defense stand out as two exceptions.  Chomsky must assert, for his reasoning to be sound, all value judgments can be based on actions alone and not on intentions; he confuses actions and intentions. In contrast, Western ethics are quite clear in saying that a person can commit the very same action with more than one intent. Every child knows that you can step on someone’s toes with or without harmful intent, yet the action is the same.

Here is perfect example of his inability to separate actions and ethics: “…the most elementary principle of just war theory, universality. Those who cannot accept this principle should have the decency to keep silent about matters of right and wrong, or just war”(Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, 2003, pg 202). He follows this assertion with the question, “Have Cuba and Nicaragua been entitled to set off bombs in Washington, New York, and Miami in self-defense against ongoing terrorist attack?”  His point is that any and all states have equal right to the use of force or no one has it, “universality.” This is a complete failure on his part to differentiate between fascist dictators and communist death-squads from those who have no other self-interested motive other than justice.

The greatest danger of Mr. Chomsky’s anti-war ethics and lies is that it fuels the anti-war movement. Moreover, it paves the way for the college student to believe that power exists without justice as a limiting factor. Thus, making it moral to quest for power for power’s own sake, which is foundational to Marxist thought. But all power must be subservient to justice and the law, especially when American national security is at stake.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host.

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Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd.

A December 18 Washington Post poll, released on the final day of the ill-fated Copenhagen climate summit, reported “four in ten Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment.” Nor is the poll an outlier. Several recent polls have found “climate change” skepticism rising faster than sea levels on Planet Algore (not to be confused with Planet Earth, where sea levels remain relatively stable).

Many of the doubt-inducing climate scientists and their media acolytes attribute this rising skepticism to the stupidity of Americans, philistines unable to appreciate that there is “a scientific consensus on climate change.” One of the benefits of the recent Climategate scandal, which revealed leading climate scientists manipulating data, methods, and peer review to exaggerate the evidence of significant global warming, may be to permanently deflate the rhetorical value of the phrase “scientific consensus.”

More:

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/march/when-to-doubt-a-scientific-consensus/

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Make Mine Freedom (1948)

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For years Nebraska has been one of the top teams in college football. So it is no surprise when Nebraska Assistant Coach Ron Brown was recruited by Stanford Univ. in California to be interviewed for the head coach position. He didn’t get very far. He was not discriminated against because he is black. Not at liberal Stanford. Brown’s problem at Stanford is that he is a Christian, apparently with rather firm beliefs on matters such as homosexuality and abortion. Said Alan Glenn, Assistant Athletic Director at Stanford, “Brown’s religion was definitely something that had to be considered. We have a very diverse community with a diverse alumni. Anything that would stand out that much is something that has to be looked at.”

Stanford prides itself in being in the vanguard of institutions which value “diversity” and “inclusion” .In fact it helped crystallize the movement to emphasize these ideas when on Jan. 15 , 1987, everyone, in a massive protest , started chanting “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Western Culture has got to go”, thereby launching the movement known as “multiculturalism.”

The Western canon, the generally accepted list of the greatest books of the West were now attacked as having been written by biased “dead white males” These books are generally based on universalism, the belief that there are universal truths that are potentially available to everybody. What Stanford now embraced was particularism, which says that what one may know is determined by the circumstances of one’s birth. Race, gender, and class became more important than ideas.

From this beginning there flowed out throughout the universities of America a whole new plague of totalitarian horrors, like “diversity”, “sensitivity training”, “political correctness”, “speech codes”, “dormitory re-education,” “deconstructionism”, and “gender feminism,” all under the general umbrella of “multiculturalism.”

That was 15 years ago. Lets take a look at a how it has all has turned out. Offhand, it looks like Stanford better hire every Christian it can find.

The brief comments that begin each section below are from “The Diversity Myth”, an almost definitive critique of multiculturalism by David Sacks and Peter Thiel, two former graduate students at Stanford University. (Independent Institute, $24.95) The book is especially recommended to students who wish to protect themselves from brainwashing by multiculturalists. Included are some other quotes, notably by Robert Bork, former Supreme Court nominee, along with comments by Mr. Magruder in parentheses, prefaced by LM.

(Sections of this article are reprinted with permission from the book , “The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance on Campus, by David Sacks and Peter Thiel. Copyright 1998. The Independent Institute , 100 Swan Way , Oakland , CA. 94621-1428;info@independent.org; )

Trustees, congressional representatives, alumni, and the general public have begun to perceive that the great multicultural experiment has brought the very opposite of higher learning. It has brought speech restrictions, a new kind of intolerance known as “political correctness” a hysterically anti-Western curriculum, the increasing politicization of student life, and campus polarization along racial and ethnic lines.

“It is impossible to imagine that academic inquiry flourishes where thought police abound. Indeed, the intellectual apparatus of the 60’s radicals now dominating the universities is built for intellectual oppression, not for inquiry” -Robert Bork

“Of the 55 top-ranked universities in the nation, not a single one requires a course in American history, and only 3 require a course in Western Civilization”-The American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Underneath a glossy veneer of open-ended and utopian rhetoric, multiculturalism depends upon very specific values to operate, and at Stanford the values that inform this process happen to be the radical values of the 60’s. Most of the multicultural faculty and administrators were student activists in the late l960’s.

( LM- Professors who were campus radicals in the 60’s love to begin the semester by bragging to students how idealistic they were in their betrayal of the 40 million people of Southeast Asia. The truth is, although they cloaked themselves in an aura of great moral purpose, the war protestors gave aid and comfort to the enemy, marched under the flag of the Viet Cong, allowed Hanoi to dictate their agenda, and turned their backs on the American soldier when they returned. Now they run the universities, teaching students how to betray the West, and to cover up their earlier betrayal they write history books riddled with lies about the Vietnam War and their role in it.).)

When a stray look can lead to a charge of sexual harassment or an ill-timed joke to a charge of a racial slur, careers and lives are needlessly destroyed. Hapless innocents get thrown out of housing, lose their jobs because of “insensitivity.” or spend years fighting frivolous lawsuits. The multiculturalist hunt for nonexistent “oppressors” who can be held responsible for all of America’s ills leads to the vilification of innocents .

“Said Brown University “sensitivity” consultant Donald Kae, “If you are feeling comfortable or normal then you are probably oppressing someone, whether that person is a woman, or a gay or whatever. We probably won’t rid our society of racism until everyone strives to be abnormal.” (LM- What horse—- !).

The speech code never had to be enforced because it had not really been needed, at least not for the stated reason of combating an epidemic of fighting words and similar abuse. In March 1995, the Santa Clara County Superior Court agreed with the students and found Stanford’s speech code unconstitutional. Because of the ruling, Stanford students can now speak as freely as the residents of neighboring Palo Alto.

(LM- Judge returns basic American freedoms to student victims of multiculturalist tyranny. What a hoot ! Free Students Now from Multiculturalist Oppression! Turn on to Truth! Tune out the lies! Drop Out of Multiculturalism !)

In a widely discussed editorial in “The Stanford Daily,” columnist Andrea Park described the ritual clitorectomies performed in some African cultures but stopped short of condemning the barbaric practice. As a feminist Park wished to condemn the custom; but after much “soul-searching”, Park wrote that she realized she could not judge other cultures by her own standards. “Is it relevant that I, an outsider, may find the practice cruel ? As hard as it is for me to admit, the answer is no. To treat the issue as a matter for feminist outrage would be to assume that one society, namely mine, has a privileged position from which to judge the practices of another.”

(LM- How does one live with such hypocrisy ? This is a perfect example of the moral coma brought about by the cultural relativism embraced by multiculturalists.)

“Radical feminism is the most destructive and fanatical movement to come down to us from the 60’s, it certainly deserves its own place in the halls of intellectual barbarism…women’s studies programs and courses are abysmal swamps of irrational dogma and hatred.” Bork

It is worth noting that all of these efforts have not had a positive impact on the level of AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, or abortions at Stanford, relative to American society at large. More than 100 Stanford women still have unwanted pregnancies each year, of which about 90 percent end in abortion. The resulting abortion rate at Stanford is about twice the national average. And as for AIDS, the rate of death at Stanford is perhaps four to five times that of the relatively “uneducated” society at large .One university residence now even has coed group showers.

(LM- What an inspiring example for American society multiculturalism is setting!)

“It is remarkable how vigorously the modern intellectual defends the descent of popular culture not merely into vulgarity but into obscenity… multiculturalism is barbarism, and it is bringing us to a barbarous epoch.”-Bork

In recent years race relations on campuses have taken a turn for the worse. King’s dream is rarely mentioned and the races remain divided There are even separate commencement ceremonies for Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. It is not inconceivable that a minority student, if so inclined, could spend all four years at Stanford without ever eating, living, speaking, or graduating with someone from a different race.

“Multiculturalists have turned Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream into a nightmare. He asked that his children “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” But multiculturalists say, “Judge me by the color of my skin for therein lies my identity and my place in the world.” -Bork

“The result of multiculturalism can only be the fragmentation , resegregation, and tribalization of American life.”- the noted liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

The Western religious tradition seeks to redeem all of humanity, not just select subgroups. The multiculturalists, by contrast, are interested in the rehabilitation only of those of a particular race, gender, class, or sexual preference who happen to share their ideological commitments. Religious Studies 8 , “Religions in America”, devotes whole lectures to Shamanism, the Peyote Cult, and the Kodiak sect, but not one to the Catholic Church.

(LM- Multiculturalism is a massive assault on the Judeo-Christian values of the West at the very time that discoveries in physics and molecular biology are lending new support to natural theology and theism. Leftist academic thugs, however, continue to carry on the spirit of the 60’s by beating up dissenting guest speakers to keep students ignorant of the issues)

“The American university has become a culture of forbidden questions.” Leon Botstein – President of Bard College.

Despite its well-earned reputation as a school with perhaps the most competitive admissions process in the country, classwork at Stanford in many ways no longer demands the intellectual equivalent of sweat. Of all letter grades granted to students, about half are A’s, 39 % are B’s, only 10% are C’s and about 1% are D’s.

(LM- Pay-offs for buying into the multiculturalist agenda. As a college professor on three campuses over l5 years I’d say the true average grade of American students is a C minus. The juxtaposition of inflated grades with declining S.A.T. scores clearly exposes how educators, steeped in the values of the 60’s, are lying to both students and parents.)

“All have won and all must have prizes.” The Dodo Bird in “Alice in Wonderland”.

Western civilization and classical liberal arts education truly are dead, killed off in the same multicultural epidemic that expunged “dead white males” from the reading lists. To be certain, the buildings are well maintained, the lawns are well watered, the football team plays for cheering throngs of fans, the faculty and the staff are well paid, and the students attend classes and receive diplomas. The institution can keep going for a while on autopilot. But the heart of the university’s humanities program – involving the quest for universal truth – has decayed into dust.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and
Everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

Did we think it only rhetoric when Yeats asked us; “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” In multiculturalism we approach the logical outcome of the campus values of the 60’s- fascism.

Art after Art goes out, and all is Night
See skulking Truth to her old Cavern fled
Mountains of Casuistry heap’d o’er her head!
Philosophy, that lean’d on Heav’n before
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more
Lo! Thy dread Empire, Chaos ! is restored
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And Universal Darkness buries all. “Duncaid” -Alexander Pope

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Perhaps after the shock of the amazing CGI wore off, you stopped and asked yourself, “what exactly was that poorly acted farce all about, anyway”? Yes, the production values are amazing, but not quite as amazing the propaganda value. Don’t let the expensive special effects fool you: a turd in 500 million dollar wrapper is still a turd. Here is everything you need to know about the movie in about 500 words.

The United States is Evil:  that’s right; apparently we’ve done it again. The main antagonist of this gaudy travesty is “The Company”, a familiar allegory for irrational greed that has become the straw man argument for all capitalist ventures. However, The Company is not simply a cautionary tale warning of humanities’ recklessness;  after all its not the “Earth Corps” that act as the Storm Troopers in this cartoonishly evil plot, it’s the US Marines. What could have been an interesting space opera was instead cast into a clumsily disguised jab at the United States involvement in Iraq. Perhaps if the Na’vi Chieftain was a bearded dictator that was hell bent on sentencing his own people to rape rooms, we could start to draw a parallel. Instead it reads like a chapter out of Das Capital. After all, why would a capitalist society be motivated to do anything other than steal the material wealth of others? Clearly the recent activities of the United States sending over the USMC to do relief work in places like Thailand and Haiti was merely sorted scheme to blow up all their trees and steal their Unobtainium.

Magic is the answer to all our problems: Why didn’t we think of that? Worse than the self righteous condemnation of our technological life style (After all, who needs industry when you can just use the USB cord growing out of your head to hotwire a Space Pterodactyl?) is the lack of any realistic alternative present. The Na’vi way of life is portrayed as morally superior to our own; we the audience are supposed to aspire to emulate them. However, they live in a contrived existence that is completely divorced from the human condition, born instead into an absurd ecosystem where magic and evolution have conspired to create a utopia where trees can return the dead to life.

You’re an Idiot: if you join the military. In the cynical world of James Cameron patriotism and other altruistic motivations for joining the service simply cannot exist. People only join the Service because they are too stupid to do anything else, and we are constantly reminded of this throughout the film. Make sure to remind your family members in the service that they are the half retarded pawns of corporate greed next time they come home.

Guns are evil: guns and the military in general are held with such contempt by the left that we actually see a bizarre sort of wish fulfillment born of ignorance and metaplot in which both the USMC and their weapons are outclassed by the natives. Apparently you can go up against heavily armored, death-dealing gunships with bows and arrows with sufficient amounts of handwavium, a material that is apparently more abundant in this film than certain other mineral deposits.

Character is overrated: especially if you’re the main character. Your country, your brothers in arms, and the planet are all counting on you. Hell, the survival of the human race is dependent on you to get the job done! On second thought, why don’t you just blow it all off for an alien booty call?

C’mon, we’ve all seen the movie by now. Why don’t you let us know at VAF what you think? Give me your best shot!

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