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Defending the virtues of liberty, free markets, and civilization... plus some commentary on the passing scene.
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Freedom's Fidelity
Monday, July 28, 2003
More on the monsters in human skin:
A man who worked as Uday Hussein's chief executioner has revealed how Saddam's son once ordered him to seize, and then help drag, two 19-year-old students into a cage to be devoured by lions.
''I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite,'' he told the London Times. He says he was forced to watch the animals devour the young students. ''By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh.''
The 36-year-old executioner, who uses the pseudonym Abu Ahmad, was told the men ''had competed with Uday where some young ladies were concerned, '' according to the newspaper.
Ahmad also claims to have supervised mass beheadings on the orders of Uday, and recounted the decapitation of 36 people, including a pregnant woman, in a single afternoon.
He claims to have been so distressed at participating in the killing of an unborn child he ''wished for Allah to open up the ground and swallow everyone there including myself.''
Uday wouldn't watch the executions, instead sending a cameraman to film them. He'd then order the victims' remains returned to their families with the head and body in separate bags, reports the paper.
Ahmad says he was also involved in killings in which the victims' heads were placed in a vice and their bodies split down the middle by a swordsman.
These stories just keep coming out, and amazingly each one uglier than the last.
Thursday, July 24, 2003
It's strange, the thought of seeing pictures of a dead human being makes me wince.... hard. Seeing pictures of a beat-up person has the same effect. Even seeing someone beat (especially Sopranos style) and/or killed in the movies puts a knot in my stomach. So I expected the same feeling as I prepared myself to view the postmortem pictures of Uday and Qusay Hussein. I looked at the pictures, I looked at the short video, but I never got that feeling, that feeling of finality, of sadness, and empathy for the man and the anguish his family must be feeling...... foiling their every attempt to distract themselves from it. That feeling never came to me, it was a relief, and it was telling. Uday and Qusay are not human. Sure any scientist worth his salt could prove to me that they are the same species as I. But in reality, no. They are monsters, monsters dressed in human skin. Monsters who demonstrated a ruthlessness so extreme, so cold, it was enough to build a house of fear inside the heart of every Iraqi citizen, while they lived royal lifestyles of sex, drugs, and rape. Uday and Qusay are gone and their reign of terror on the citizens of Iraq is finished.
I think of all the lives they ended and all the hopes and dreams these two men never allowed to come to fruition. How many people did they kill? Thousands? For sure, likely flirting with the hundred thousand mark, undoubtedly two of the most evil men to walk the planet in that last hundred years. So that is why I didn't get that human ache of seeing a fellow man dead, I look at them and I think of all the people that might have been killed or tortured, or might have lost a family member to one of them, but now won't. I look at them dead, at their twisted, swollen, battered faces and see nothing but life.
Edgar Allan Poe meets Saddam Hussein in the The Tell-Tale Heart?
It sure seems that way over at Big Wig here's an excerpt:
Just six months ago the fear of his sons covered an entire nation. Today they discovered it had shrunken so much that it no longer covered even a single household.
The Americans came for them, and first they shot the walls away, until only piles of dust lay between them and his sons. And then they shot the dust away, and his name and the last hope of his glory floated away with it.
"They fought like heroes!" he tells anyone who will listen, knowing full well they died like dogs, shrieking in agony and rage as the end they had brought to so many others came for them, cradling countless half familiar faces beneath its dark wings.
Faces twisted with hate, faces laughing with glee. Faces promising retribution.
Faces promising more. Go read it all, you don't want to miss how it ends. This powerful prose deserves some recognition, like maybe publication in an Iraqi newspaper. It would take weeks to list the atrocities these two psychopaths committed. The rapes (some girls as young as 12), tossing men into plastic shredders, the beatings and executions and all the hopes, dreams and souls these two crushed, the ugly stories keep coming out. Damn them.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
10 Lies We Were Told About Iraq Porphyrogenitus offers them up, here's a few:
Here are the whoppers they want you to forget while they focus your attention elsewhere. All of these were frequently bandied about by huge numbers of people and were the conventional wisdom of many:
1) The Iraqi Army would fight much harder to defend its country than it did in Kuwait.
Most Iraqi soldiers deserted at the first opportunity, having no desire to defend the Ba'ath National Socialist regime.
2) Iraq is not Afghanistan - it will take half a million American troops and at least six months to capture Baghdad, resulting in 50,000 American casualties (of which approximately 10,000 would be deaths).
As with the earlier "Afghanistan is not Iraq" prediction, this one likewise failed to materialize. It took half that number of American troops, less than a third as much time, and a tiny fraction of that casualty estimate.
3) Iraq will draw Israel into the war, leading to a larger Middle East conflagration.
Didn't happen.
4) There would be massive resistance from the Iraqi population defending their country from invasion.
Hardly anyone lifted a finger to defend the Ba'ath National Socialist Regime. Aside from the Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, Ba'athist thugs, and foreign volunteers, the bulk of the population simply stayed out of the way.
Even now, if one looks at the pattern of attacks, they are by and large restricted to a region north and west of Baghdad, where Saddam drew his greatest support, and carried out by Ba'athist death squads (typically the same sort of people who were used to terrorize the Iraqi population) and foreign auxiliaries from other Arab states. The vast majority of the Iraqi population, rather than supporting these attacks, are mainly concerned that we end them and produce security.
5) There would be street by street, house to house fighting in Baghdad that would destroy the city, cost thousands of American casualties, and drag on for six weeks or more.
Didn't happen that way. (Full disclosure: I thought this was a distinct possibility and it was something I worried most about).
Now go read the rest. I would add to the list the projected costs of war. House Democrats offered a low end estimate of $93 billion, and a Yale economist estimated a cost of $1.92 trillion, this number is inflated by his projections of rebuilding costs as well as projected damage to the US economy, curiously he allowed for nothing good to possibly happen. But it did anyway, the actual cost is estimated at just under $64 billion, and it's worth noting that a good chunk of that cost, close to half according to a USA today, would have been spent anyway on inspections and a enforcing the policy of containment the anti-war crowd preferred.... yearly.
In fact three University of Chicago profesors put together a remarkable study "War in Iraq versus Containment: Weighing the Costs" that considered financial as well as human costs of each side. They concluded that a policy of containment would cost around $630 billion in total. If you don't want to read the full 20 pages of the study, Eric Olsen at Blogcritics wrote a succinct summary of the results back in April.
And don't overlook that some in the media lied about Bush lying:
The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I've spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I've also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday's story about the White House and the uranium claims.
Erasing the stories doesn't erase the fact that we ran articles containing information that, given the source, was probably inaccurate. And it doesn't erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned.
The bottom line is I feel lied to about the reasons for not going to war!! I demand a full congressional investigation!!! But how can I trust these Democrats that authorized Bush for war several months ago? Don't some of them sit on the intelligence committees? Did they just take his word for it, or did the "bumbling idiot" Bush manage to use a Texas variation of the jedi mind trick?
For more on this see John Hawkins who writes that Bush's critics are rewriting history. Instapundit, in typical fashion, has covered this question quite thoroughly as well.
UPDATE If you still need help, please see Bush Lied (TM) for Dummies
Monday, July 14, 2003
Here's a link (another via InstaPundit) to a letter written by a Muslim US Soldier in Iraq. (FYI - It is letter #10)
What caught my eye was the last sentence:
"There is an Arab proverb that says a thousand days of tyranny is better than one day of anarchy. It's time we kick that proverb to the curb."
In college, a professor once told me that one of the first things they teach you in law school is that "it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to put away one innocent man."
I know I risk oversimplifying here but contrasting those ideals goes a long way to highlight the fundamental political (if you can call governing by torture and massacre "political") differences between the Middle East and the West.
Proof of the Osama/Saddam link?
It's not quite proof, but it certainly is noteworthy and something to keep an eye on. The invaluable InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds posted this letter from Judge Gilbert S. Merritt (a life long Democrat and friend of the Al Gore family) who has been in Iraq on a judicial assistance mission with the ABA:
Through an unusual set of circumstances, I have been given documentary evidence of the names and positions of the 600 closest people in Iraq to Saddam Hussein, as well as his ongoing relationship with Osama bin Laden.
I am looking at the document as I write this story from my hotel room overlooking the Tigris River in Baghdad.
One of the lawyers with whom I have been working for the past five weeks had come to me and asked me whether a list of the 600 people closest to Saddam Hussein would be of any value now to the Americans.
I said, yes, of course. He said that the list contained not only the names of the 55 ''deck of cards'' players who have already been revealed, but also 550 others.
When I began questioning him about the list, how he obtained it and what else it showed, he asked would it be of interest to the Americans to know that Saddam had an ongoing relationship with Osama bin Laden.
I said yes, the Americans have, so far as I am aware, have never been able to prove that relationship, but the president and others have said that they believe it exists. He said, ''Well, judge, there is no doubt it exists, and I will bring you the proof tomorrow.''
So today he brought me the proof, and there is no doubt in my mind that he is right.
The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ''responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.''
The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein.
Uday was the publisher of The Babylon Daily Political Newspaper and printed the list. He also decided to splash on the front page, side by side pictures of bin Laden and Hussein inexplicably never realizing the potential damaging effect of his own newspaper publicly linking the two. A relationship that at the time of publication (November 2002) Saddam was adamantly denying existed. Saddam must have hit the roof because within two hours, the newsstands were relieved of all copies, as was anyone else who had been known to receive one. No word if Saddam hooked up the electrodes to Uday's genitals for this one.
Now, today Glenn Reynolds offers more on the subject. Among the more compelling is another letter from Judge Merritt indicating he's been gagged by the U.S. Government as well as a decent sized list of articles from 1999 indicating a connection between Saddam and Osama. Check it out here.
It would be hard for me to believe that not one of Saddam's billions of dollars ever made it to terrorism groups, in fact, I think that has been well documented, as it provided him an easy method of waging war against the west by proxy. There were also terrorist training camps found in Northern Iraq, but I never thought the relationship was much deeper than that. The above suggests otherwise, it will be interesting to see what kind of coverage this gets and if it turns out to be credible, which so far, it seems to be.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Jacques Chirac, President of France and friend of murderous tyrants everywhere.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Could Dissertation Be a Security Threat?
Bill Hobbs has an interesting post on a George Mason University grad student's dissertation. The student, Sean Gorman, has compiled what Hobbs describes as "a computerized mapping of every business and industrial sector in the American economy, layering on top the fiber optic network that connects them." In short, a potential treasure map for terrorists complete with prime targets marked and highlighted. It was also compiled however, with information from the public domain, all found freely on the internet. How do you perform the delicate balance of weighing free speech against the public safety in this case? Should it be published, or should it be classified? Hobbs offers this insight:
Our economy is built, torn down, and rebuilt bigger and better through a constant cycle of change and growth that economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction.
Islamic terrorism is about just destruction. The whole of the Islamic terror movement is based on defeating modernism and returning the Muslim world to the 13th Century. It is not about survival, creativity, growth and change, it is about death and destruction and rolling back 700 years of progress. It is a movement that will never invent something like the cell phone, the jet aircraft or the computer. It's a movement that uses Western technology - and virtually all technology is Western - but doesn't understand it and can't innovate it. Visit your local Circuit City store, your local pharmacy, your local computer store, your local auto dealer, or your local manufacturer of almost anything. You won't find a single product invented by Islamic fundamentalists.
The Islamic terror movements' biggest technological innovation in recent years was to turn a hijacked airliner into a flying bomb instead of a negotiating tool - and it took them about four decades to come up with it. Meanwhile, the heroes of Flight 93 came up with a counterattack in about 90 minutes, learning of the threat via cellphone calls to loved ones on the ground, and then coordinating the response that brought the plane down short of its intended target. al Qaeda's innovation, four decades in the making, was rendered obsolete in 90 minutes by a few average Americans.
In the race to use information and innovate, I'm willing to bet on Americans over the terrorists.
I would say that's a good bet. The article in the Washington Post is a fascinating one, CIO's of large corporations, when presented with the research were shocked to realize how interdependent and at some points fragile, their networks actually are. It is causing them to examine these vulnerabilities and close them. George Mason University, as of now, is planning on publishing only the most general aspects of the work. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
David Warren says that Iraq is flypaper for terrorists
While engaged in the very difficult business of building a democracy in Iraq -- the first democracy, should it succeed, in the entire history of the Arabs -- President Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy, away from Israel, and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of proving this lower ground, he drains terrorist resources from other swamps.
This is the meaning of Mr. Bush's "bring 'em on" taunt from the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday, when he was quizzed about the "growing threat to U.S. forces" on the ground in Iraq. It should have been obvious that no U.S. President actually relishes having his soldiers take casualties. What the media, and U.S. Democrats affect not to grasp, is that the soldiers are now replacing targets that otherwise would be provided by defenceless civilians, both in Iraq and at large. The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation -- and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists, compelling their response -- is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.
This is exactly what President Bush wants. To engage them, away from Israel, in mortal combat. To have an excuse for wiping them out -- a good, solid, American excuse, from which Israel has been extracted. The good news is, Hizbullah's taking the bait.
When the war began it was widely reported that men from neighboring countries were heading to Iraq to "slay the infidels." "Great!" I thought, let the rats all crawl out of their caves and gather in one place so we can get all the morons at once. Like the man said, Bring 'em on!
Monday, July 07, 2003
On the beach in San Diego last weekend, a guy came around asking for signatures. For what? "To prevent the recall of Gray Davis and save the taxpayers $75 million dollars," we were told. Most of us in the group declined because of our politics. He countered that we could at least help him get some money, cause he gets paid for each signature, and this crowded beach means a lot of money for him! In terms of getting signatures, the pitch about Gray Davis saving a bunch of money for taxpayers was much less effective than the "c'mon help a guy out" rap. By my calculations that means that all those signatures are worth about as much as a Gray Davis campaign promise to save $75 million dollars, right?
Anyways, Mark Steyn has a great piece, loaded with bluntness and humor, on the situation.
The last time I discussed California's government in these pages was when their attorney general wanted to introduce Ken Lay, the then Enron boss, to the benefits of California justice. "I would love," said Bill Lockyer, "to personally escort Lay to an 8 x 10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey'."
In those days, Mr Lockyer and his Democratic colleagues were still doing a passable job of blaming everybody else for the state's woes. Now, alas, voters seem inclined to believe that what the attorney general wanted Spike to do to Mr Lay, the state government has done to them, and very comprehensively.
You should definitely read it all.
Sunday, July 06, 2003
INDEPENDENCE DAY - CELEBRATE AND REFLECT
I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence weekend, I know I did. I watched fireworks bursting over the Chicago skyline from my back porch (I have an amazing view) Thursday through Saturday night and spent time celebrating with great friends. I thought about the meaning of our independence, how lucky I am that I have all these freedoms, which really are the exception, not the rule, in human history. Off the top of my head, I don't know how many millions of years man has been around, but I realize that a little over 200 years of liberty in the western world is a drop in the ocean. We are a part of the greatest experiment in human history, a time of unprecedented prosperity and standard of living. Thanks to the triumph of the concept of individual liberty.
Liberty is also a heavy burden and awesome responsibility, especially in America. If liberty dies here, it will die everywhere. There is nothing easy about liberty. As my former professor at Monmouth College, Michael Connell wrote to me,
"One of the most difficult things for anyone to do -- is to let other people lead their own lives and take actions that, according to your values are not in their best interest. Letting people live their lives and make their mistakes is tough for a parent and a teacher BUT IT IS THE ESSENCE OF LIBERTY. LIBERTY MEANS LOTS OF MISTAKES."
Yes. It's very easy to look around the world at all its problems, all its death, bloodshed and massacre and come away with the attitude of "Fuck democracy, fuck communism, all I want is a life and a girl." That captures the sentiment that nothing is worth fighting, dying and killing for, that it's best to just be content with the hand that life has dealt you. But that is the attitude that allows dictators to rise to power, that is what the Husseins, Hitlers, and Stalins of the world want. We are so very fortunate that our founding fathers recognized that independence was worth fighting (and dying) for.
Each one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were wealthy property owners often with high government positions, each had significantly more to lose by signing on to the revolution than not. One of those lesser known signers was Abraham Clark. He had two sons that fought for the revolution and were captured by British soldiers. Clark was offered a deal, his sons would be released if he would remove his signature from the Declaration of Independence. Knowing he had made a sacred vow with all of the signers to never remove their names, he refused. His sons were murdered. And today, we are free. July 4th should serve to remind us all what it took to achieve this freedom and what will be asked of us in the future to sustain it.
Here's something to feel good about, the Kurds offering coalition soldiers some appreciation and enjoyment for the Fourth.
The "Star-Spangled Banner" is playing over the public address system as the sun sets over Lake Dukan, the American flag is flying, there's roast chicken on the spit, and the picnic tables are heaped high with tomatoes, pickles and mayonnaise salad.
At the microphone, Barham Salih, the prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is talking about his admiration for the U.S. Constitution, with its guarantees of government by the consent of the people and its obligations to abolish governments that fail to listen.....
....Pro-U.S. sentiment has grown since April, when coalition forces drove Hussein from power. "U.S.-U.K., Liberators of Iraq from Saddam's Terror," reads a banner at the entrance to central Suleimaniyah, the capital of Kurdistan's lake district.
"We feel liberated. We're very very happy," said Dana Mohammed, the 19-year-old duty manager. "When U.S. soldiers stop by here, they don't have to worry about attacks."
He said the coalition's ouster of Hussein has dramatically raised hopes for a peaceful future in Kurdistan.
"I've been like a blind man during Saddam's time," he said. "Look at my hair. It's already turning gray, and I don't even know how to get on a plane at the airport yet. I haven't done anything. Now the future is very different. I'm free. I can travel, and no one will follow or arrest me."
For obvious reasons, words of those that have actually been liberated by the United States and coalition forces carry much more weight with me than words of those western intellectuals who claim that the "Arab Street" hates us and does not want us meddling. (Cause if they want to live under oppression, that's their choice as a sovereign nation right?)
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Is taxation theft? Read and marvel as Keith Burgess Jackson offers a philisophical deconstruction of that question
As the philosopher Onora O'Neill has shown in "Which Are the Offers You Can't Refuse?" [1991], coercion is an acquired -- and in some cases a highly developed -- skill. The coercer must know, among other things, the value structure of the coercee. Most people value their lives more than their cash or credit cards, which is why robbers feel confident in the success of "Your money or your life." If you are suicidal, however, my imposed choice may not have its desired effect, in which case I have bungled the attempt. Another thing coercers need is credibility. If your threat to kill me is incredible, because, for example, you are brandishing an obviously nonfunctional gun, you will not succeed in appropriating my wallet.
Governmental taxing authorities are coercers, and their threats - as anyone who has been audited knows - are credible. They say, in effect, "Your money or your liberty." Most people value their liberty more than their property, so they grudgingly comply. It does begin to appear as though taxation is theft (or, more precisely, robbery, which is a special case of theft).
But perhaps we have gone too fast. We said that taxation is the taking of someone's property without right or permission. The word "right" is notoriously ambiguous.
.....In this context, the question is whether taxation violates people's rights. If it does, then it is a straightforward case of theft. If it doesn't, then it isn't.
We have reached the issue that divides libertarians (classical liberals) and socialists or modern liberals.
I don't think that the answer to this question can be an absolute "yes" and I don't think the author argues that, though he may come close. However this article certainly offers some interesting discussion points on the matter as well as debunking a common socialist argument favoring taxes for redistributive purposes. Read it all.
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
DOES ANYONE KNOW THE AGE REQUIREMENT TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT OF FRANCE?
Previously described as the "Modern Female Frederic Bastiat" (by me), here's more on 21-year old Sabine Herold
Sabine is my new French exchange partner. She is a political science student, very beautiful and speaks perfect English. She has also just become the most famous 21-year-old in France.
Dubbed France's Lady Thatcher by the newspapers, Mademoiselle Herold has been leading the rallies against the unions who have been crippling her country. Standing on a telephone box in her pearl earrings and high heels, she addresses crowds of 80,000, urging them to rise up against the striking teachers, Metro workers, rubbish collectors and air traffic controllers who are ruining people's lives. With her student friends, she has set up an organisation: Liberte J'Ecris Ton Nom, which has thousands of members, demanding that France reforms.
Now, she wants to come to Britain. Her email is simple: "I would like to spend my time meeting politicians. I don't wear jeans; I like red meat; please could I bring a camera crew?"
Even red meat!! Then there's this....
We have an hour's gap - would she like to rest? "I would like to go on the London Eye," she says. "Your publicly financed Dome was a fiasco, but your big wheel is an example of private enterprise." On the wheel, she notices all the cranes. "There is so much building work going on in Britain - that is good. Paris is a very beautiful city but it is becoming like a museum."
I observe the same thing in American ghettos. Government supplied services and infrastructure (roads, schools, housing) are a mess, but the free market has no problem supplying expensive gym shoes, clothes, jewelry, and fancy cars.
More crackdowns from the Iranian regime:
TEHRAN, IRAN -- Iran is blocking access to Web sites containing pornographic material and opposition-driven dissent against the country's Islamic establishment, an official said Tuesday.
More than 140 Web sites promoting dissent, dancing and sex have been blocked since the crackdown began last month, said Farhad Sepahram, an official at the Telecommunications Ministry.
Religious hard-liners are increasingly concerned about Iranians' access to information from the outside world, a sign of worry such communications may stir pro-reform sentiment, such as the recent anti-government demonstrations.
Sepahram said most of the blocked Web sites belong to opposition groups. One is run by Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
There is a fair number of pro-reform bloggers in Iran and, some have been arrested, some have been beaten, but the internet is obviously proving valuable in giving them a louder voice in their fight for freedom, seems much more effective than say... suicide bombing.
Jeff Jarvis has a roundup of thoughts from some Iranian bloggers as well as this excerpt from an open letter from an expatriate:
. . . In my opinion, the United States has a much more serious preoccupation these days than just money and financial rewards of a free and unhampered trade with Iran. This is not to say that the American capitalists care little about substantially lucrative opportunities that a democratic Iran under a free market system can offer them. But after the events of September 11 and the realization of its vulnerability to terrorism, the United States was painfully faced with two essential and very basic facts: first that money has no value when you're dead; and second that as long as the two issues of international terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are not effectively dealt with being dead is a very real possibility. Also, as the sole remaining superpower in the world, the United States does not only have the responsibility to deal with this problem, but is the only power with sufficient means and international reach to solve a problem of this magnitude. And solve it, it must. So, in my opinion, America's desire to eliminate the theocracy in Iran is based on much more fundamental motivations than money and financial rewards, and therefore, makes a much more dependable ally for our democratic forces than the European Union. Where Europeans are our tactical allies, the Americans can be considered our strategic allies in establishing a secular democracy in our country and propagating it throughout the region.
Am I claiming that the United States will never, under any circumstance abandon our secular democratic forces and make a deal with the Islamic Republic? No, not at all. We should not be naïve about this, either. The United States is driven by nothing more than its own national security objectives. But that's just fine, because at this historical juncture the United States indeed "has no better friend" than a secular democratic Iran. Our success in establishing a secular democracy in Iran would eliminate one of the most potent sources of anti-American sentiments in the Middle East and one of the major forces of international terrorism, as well as one of the most significant obstacles to peace between Palestine and Israel.
So, given that the United States -like any other sane country- is driven by its own interests, would it still make a good ally for our democratic forces? The answer is, of course it would. We should not fear taking a helping hand from the United States, if offered. The Americans do not have any hidden agenda. They are crystal clear about their objectives and are not after our independence. A peaceful, free, and democratic Iran is big enough of a prize for them.
Yes, it is. The spread of democracy really is the best weapon against organized terror groups. Are the dictators in the region fearing the democracy domino effect?
For more blogs from Iran start here, scroll down and up, lots of good stuff!
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Reading and blogging has been non-existent for me the last week or so, busy at work and had a great long weekend in San Diego. 26 years old, plus summer in Chicago does not equal the best time to start a blog I suppose, too many things to do..... In anycase, San Diego was an amazing trip, we got a quick tour of the city, ate lunch downtown, hit the beaches, went camping in the mountains, had a blast at a house party, spent the next day on an incredibly pristine lake surrounded on all sides by mountains, it truly felt like God's country.
After that we cleaned up and had nice dinner at Ruth's Steak house, then saw Evan Dando and the Lemonheads in an intimate setting called the Belly Up. I never flipped on the news or purchased a newspaper (though I considered it once). I can't remember the last time that happened, and I'm glad it did. What a vacation!
Thanks to Joe, Toni, Will, and Tiffany for being great hosts, great people and giving us an incredible extended weekend, I couldn't have asked for anything better. I hope to be back soon!
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