Reprinted in full, page forward to page 18, at the link.
âInsanity,â goes a popular old saw attributed to both Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin, I think Ben got there first âis doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.â As a corollary, it seems to me that saying the same thing over and over again regardless of the results should be a similar kind of crazy. oiloiloil
For the last few years, weâve been told (by John Kerry, Howard Dean, various and sundry editorialists, et al) that George W. Bush has, through the âwrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,â âcreated more terroristsâ and âisolated Americaâ by inflaming passions in the Middle East. Cindy Sheehan has amplified this perspective, calling President Bush, among other things, an âevil maniacâ and the worldâs âbiggest terrorist.â And, in the process, sheâs become a hero to those who see pathos in her protest and a sham to those who see bathos in her stunts.
But as Sheehanâs rhetoric is exceeding even the heat of the Crawford sun and as Democrats openly ponder whether sheâs the piedpiper to lead them out of the wilderness, facts on the ground are changing. If the war has created more terrorists and made the world hate us more, why exactly has Muslim and Arab opinion of the United States improved? Say what? According the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, views toward the U.S. have been improving. Well, why isn't that on the front page of the New York Times. Oh, wait...never mind. Weâre not exactly back to the days when Kuwaiti babies were being named George Bush, but the trends are in our favor.
The share of people with a favorable view of America went up in Indonesia some 23 points, Lebanon 15 points and Jordan 16 points. Trends in France, Germany, Russia and India have been moving our way, too. Somebody better find that report! But the news gets even better. Support for terrorism and Osama Bin Laden has been plummeting across the Arab and Muslim world (save for in Jordan, where the large Palestinian population plays a big role) while support for democracy has improved. According to Pew, ânearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries.â Mythical Moderate Muslims Mobilizing? Now THERE'S a title! The share of those supporting suicide bombings and the targeting of civilians has fallen by more than a third in Lebanon, where democracy is on the move, by the way, and by 16 and 27 percent in Pakistan and Morocco, respectively. Similar declines for Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaida and the like have been recorded.
Now, thereâs no doubt these numbers are imperfect and hardly speak to a single cause. In Indonesia, our generous tsunami relief helped a great deal. In Lebanon, terrorism isnât just something that happens to Israelis and Americans, itâs something that could snuff out the rebirth of democracy there (and a reminder of the civil war few wish to return to). And across the Arab world, images of Iraqi âinsurgentsâ slaughtering innocent men, women and children while Americans are trying to build schools and hospitals have shifted opinions.
But here in the U.S. opinions remain fixed. Opponents of the war are convinced that every day we are in Iraq we are making things worse for America and the world. One could certainly argue that weâre making things worse for America, in that the war has not gone as well as many of its supporters hoped or expected. But even if you proved that the war was a mistake in every way, shape and form, arguing that it never should have happened is not an argument for abandoning the project. If you stab a man in the chest, you donât cure him by simply yanking the knife out. In other words, the old talking points on both sides do not matter anymore. There is an important lesson for President Bush in all this. His talking point, as evidenced in his recent speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, remains âstay the course.â That has been his talking point for a very long time. I like consistency, as opposed to poll-watching. And, in fairness, if your policy is to stay the course, then saying âstay the courseâ has a certain irrefutable logic to it. But on any long journey, the course may stay the same but the terrain changes. Much has changed in Iraq. The Iraqi army is progressing even as bombers target recruiting stations; the marshlands have been restored; any ecologists out there to applaud that? and thereâs an enormous car-buying boom in Iraq, which is surely a sign of confidence. Morale â to the consternation of our domestic media â is still very high among the regular troops (less so among National Guardsmen). And, letâs not forget, the messy process of constitution-writing is unfolding before our very eyes. For reasons so imponderable a cottage industry of West Wing Kremlinologists has sprung up, President Bush seems incapable or unwilling to make the case in light of the new realities. One can stay the course, and cross mountains and valleys. Letâs hear less about the destination and more about crossing the mountains and valleys.
Examiner columnist Jonah Goldberg is editor at large at the National Review Online and a syndicated columnist.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/26/2005 07:35 ||
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"...and thereâs an enormous car-buying boom in Iraq."
EFL. Henninger's Wonderland column from today's WSJ. Mentions some organizations I support and I hope you will too.
...Today, because of the Internet, no one has to seethe in silence, as wired activists in both parties proved in 2004's high-tech election, and now. But it may be that the current infatuation with anti-Bush, anti-Iraq sentiment is again missing a political current flowing beneath the surface of the news, just as the media missed the silent majority 40 years ago and the values voters in the 2004 election.
I would call this faction the Quiet Majority. These people are organized and they are pro-active. But they pass beneath our politics unnoticed because they're about something deeper than TV face-time. There is a large number of groups that have organized in the past three years solely to support the American troops in Iraq.
ââ¬Â¢ Bill Robie recently drove three hours from Atlanta to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to help Jim Hake's Spirit of America--which has nearly 14,000 supporters--load school supplies bound for Iraq. "Groups like SoA, Home for Our Troops, Operation Homefront, Fisher House and others don't get much attention," he wrote me a few days ago, "yet they represent the true character of our nation."
ââ¬Â¢ John Folsom is a Marine Reserve colonel from Nebraska, now in Iraq. Two years ago he "passed the hat" among colleagues and raised money to create Wounded Warriors, which supports military hospitals by buying laptops for bedridden soldiers, TVs and overhead projectors for medical staff. His support base is small. "It's almost like a family," he told me.
ââ¬Â¢ Soldiers' Angels was started in 2003 by Patti Patton-Bader, the mother of a sergeant in Iraq then. It now has 45,000 members. Its executive director, Don MacKay, says: "Our members come from across the political spectrum. But there is one opinion they all share: Our soldiers deserve every ounce of support we can muster."
The message boards some of these groups maintain make clear that troops are aware, in detail, of antiwar activity. Again, this isn't Vietnam. They have news access. If the Democratic left does levitate another antiwar movement, it won't be the unanswered opposition of the Vietnam years. The counter-opposition will draw numbers from these pro-troop groups. They, too, are Internet-linked. They are better informed than most people, they are committed, and they are articulate. And they have stories to tell.
Does this add up to millions of pro-Iraq voters? Who knows? But the quiet, mostly nonpartisan, pro-G.I. activism of these people has put them closer to the reality of the war--its pain, its losses, its successes and kinships. My guess is their kind of support is what the troops on the front want most now, rather than having to sit along the Euphrates River wondering if Chuck Hagel, Russ Feingold and the Rolling Stones are going to pull the rug from under them over the next two years.
I'll let this one go, but please provide a source in the source box in the Poster, or else the article has a high likelihood of being deleted.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/26/2005 10:51 ||
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Sory, s/b page 4
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/26/2005 10:56 Comments ||
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Here's the link. Mrs. D. didn't provide it, I imagine, because the oOpinionJournal requires registration.
THE UNITED STATES -- and our own region in particular -- is losing its status as the world's technological innovator, and we will face major consequences if we do not take action.
Our economy will suffer as we move from independent innovators to dependent consumers. Our security will be in question if we outsource development of technologies designed to keep our country safe. And our lives will be altered by people in other countries and cultures who are creating technologies that do not fit our unique needs and desires. We must teach our children to be technologically literate, to understand how things work. Our children's future is at stake.
According to the US Department of Education, in 2003 only 17 percent of degrees from American colleges and universities were in science or engineering. Our children are not learning the engineering skills they need. Studies tell us that we can maintain our reputation as a technological superpower if we "produce" more scientists and engineers.
Massachusetts has led the way by becoming first in the nation in 2001 to develop curriculum frameworks for engineering at all levels, from kindergarten through 12th grade. In addition, science and engineering/technology will be an MCAS requirement starting with students graduating in 2010. But before we can graduate scientists and engineers, we must first engage children in science, technology, and engineering, igniting and then fostering their natural curiosity about how things work.
I was shocked when I arrived in the United States from Greece in 1980 to discover how misunderstood and undervalued engineering was among Americans and how little people knew about it. In the United States the engineering profession has suffered from an image problem. People who drive trains, collect trash, and fix VCRs are all called "engineers." But the engineers I refer to are the people who build things -- from bicycles to bridges -- and make them work. Engineering, the process that creates technology, involves identifying a problem, designing a solution, testing and improving the design, and building the technology.
Engineers are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the things we deal with every day, from the cars we drive to the cellphones we use. To address this image problem, we need to help people in our country, starting with children, to appreciate the role engineers play in the world.
The good news is that children are born engineers. A child exhibits an instinct to design and build when constructing a fort out of blankets and pillows or a castle out of sand. We need to harness this natural ability and make technology and engineering exciting in a way that is equally inspiring to boys and girls.
At the Museum of Science we have worked to develop curriculums that meet both state and national standards -- while fostering children's innate engineering skills. One program engages elementary school students in building their own water filters, windmills, walls, and bridges. More than 70 teachers and some 1,400 pupils across Massachusetts benefit from this program. This fall the curriculum will be field-tested in California, Minnesota, Colorado, and Florida.
To advance technological literacy among our children, it is essential that we remain vigilant about updating our schools' science curriculums so that students learn lessons about the human-made world as well as the natural world, while also experiencing the relevance of technology in their daily lives. Isn't it as important to teach our children about how a car or a computer works as how a volcano erupts? I believe we need both.
The growing awareness of our children's lack of interest in science has prompted the Museum of Science to reexamine how best to fulfill its responsibility to engage children in science and engineering. I challenge parents, public officials, and business and industry leaders to give our kids the opportunity to explore the human-made world -- to discover how a solar collector works, why popcorn pops, or who creates their iPod. By inspiring the children of today in such explorations, we will help build the innovators and thinkers of tomorrow.
#1
Dire Warning! THE UNITED STATES -- and our own region in particular -- is losing its status as the world's technological innovator, and we will face major consequences if we do not take action.
Sort of like the panic after Sputnik.
According to the US Department of Education...
More money, more money!!!!
I was shocked when I arrived in the United States from Greece in 1980 to discover how misunderstood and undervalued engineering...
Which is why we will continue to get enough engineers. They, along with their other skilled brothers and sisters, get the H1B visas by the hundreds of thousands every year. Does the name Von Braun ring a bell? We've been doing this a while.
Thank you for your concern, we now return to our regularly scheduled rant.
#2
Oh, boy. If it's in the Globe, it's gotta be true. And I'll bet they can hardly wait.
And here's an idea Mr. Museum of Science. Why not upgrade some of those science exhibits? I saw the same ones when we went there on 7th grade field trips in 1967.
I am not having a fit of relativism, but letâs be honest: Mugabe is our fault.
When he had his opponents murdered in the â70s to eliminate competition for the post of head honcho we pretended not to see; when he was carrying out the genocide of the Matabele, we looked the other way; when he embarked in the whole-sale looting of the DR Congo we kept quiet; when he threatened and intimidated the judiciary, and bombed independent newspapers nary a word was spent to condemn him. The atrocities that soon followed were to be expected.
The truth is, Mugabe has not changed at all. He has always been a bitter and revengeful arseshole, with very limited intelligence and full of contempt for the people of Zimbabwe.
It was convenient in the early â80s to fete and praise him, hoping that this would keep him happy and he would not transform himself in the typical president for life; it didnât work - it never does - and usually it has the opposite effect on weak minds, who feel emboldened by the hypocrites who laud them.
Even today, those who attack him feel obliged to recall how progressive and democratic he was at the beginning of his reign; but this, too, is a lot of politically correct poppycock. Mugabe, unintelligent but street-smart, had simply understood how to keep the aid money flowing; when it finished (with very little to show for it, apart from a few schools and hospitals) he had to find ways to entrench himself (he had already committed so many atrocities that could only feel safe by remaining in power) and had to start to take decisions: all wrong, all tragic, all stupid.
Despite the numerous examples on the continent he could have learned from â have you noticed how all African dictators consumed and destroyed the initial enthusiastic aid money and the inherited colonial infrastructure in about 15 years from independence before starting to really act up? â he persisted in following the same route, pinning the blame for his failures sometime on the west, sometime on homosexuals, more often on imaginary âenemies of the peopleâ.
Today Mugabe probably feels betrayed, and with reason. He must be asking himself: âwhy attack me now when you all knew from the beginning where I was going?â
We should have acted a long time ago to avoid the ruin of the one country in Africa that could have lead the continent into the 21st century.
#1
The lone comment on that post really frosts me:
"If Mugabe is indeed the West's fault (which is at best arguable in my opinion), the awakening you point out is apparently meaningless to present day leaders in the West. They don't care that the Chinese are proliferating their (communist) propaganda in Zimbabwe and beyond. They don't care that barbaric ammendments are being made to the constitution as we speak.
Don't mistake this for another desperate whimper from Africa for help from the West. I'm just stating what seems obvious to me; that leaders in the west have never cared about us and obviously aren't interested now.
It is up to us, the people to emanciapate ourselves. And maybe, you too in the west will realise the sanctity of human connections and bypass the inactivity of your leaders to reach out to us on the basis of our common humanity."
First he claims not to be whimpering while incessantly whining that we don't care and then that immortal last whinge.
Hey, A Brain, exactly what kind of activity you looking for here? What kind of "caring" would float your decrepit little boat? You want some civilians, or Marines, come over and off-Muggie for you? You want us to come take over and run the dump since you have proven you can't? Or, do you just want that hand that reaches out to contain even more money?
#3
You can say we could have and should have done something about it but to say he's "our fault" is ridiculous. He's zimbabwe's peoples' fault for letting a lunatic take over.
Let's stop this blame america for everything crap, it's making me wanna puke.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
