In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave new World,” the author posits a chilling future – a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, where the people are genetically designed to be passive and consistently useful to the ruling class.

I always tried to imagine what events and decisions led up to Huxley’s nightmare reality. Did the scientists know that the research they were doing would be used for the nefarious purpose of changing the essence of humanity? Did the people realize that the potential for this kind of mischief was present? What would the ethicists and guardians of faith and religion have had to say?

I bring this up because scientists are now initiating research projects using human stem cells injected into animal embryos with the dual goals of perhaps creating organs suitable for human transplant and the extraordinarily profitable enterprise of creating “cutting edge” lab animals for use in testing a wide variety of new drugs.

Both of these goals have exciting potential to yield benefits that would change the face of modern medicine and pharmacology. But at what price? And are there hidden dangers, unseen trap doors that scientists and ethicists either aren’t aware of or just not bothering to look for?

This project in Nevada, where sheep embryos were injected with human cells to create partially human organs, is not really a big deal. Scientists have been doing similar experiments with mice for more than a decade. What makes this experiment different is that the researcher, Jason Chamberlain, also injected human brain cells into the brain of the animal fetus:

As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly within the new ethics guidelines the influential National Academies issued this past week for stem cell research.

In fact, the Academies’ report endorses research that co-mingles human and animal tissue as vital to ensuring that experimental drugs and new tissue replacement therapies are safe for people.

Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep’s head?

Such a possibility is extremely unlikely. But not so much out of the question that one ethics panel didn’t think carefully about a “what if” scenario:

In January, an informal ethics committee at Stanford University endorsed a proposal to create mice with brains nearly completely made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist Irving Weissman said his experiment could provide unparalleled insight into how the human brain develops and how degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s progress.

Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who chaired the ethics committee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice’s behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.

At times, it seems scientists have never quite grown out of being the little boy or girl in the basement with a chemistry set who set out to mix two compounds together just to see what would happen and end up with either a toxic mess or a small explosion. This is not necessarily a bad thing as any good scientist will have that same insatiable curiosity as those children. The problem is, this attitude when carried into scientific undertakings with the most profound ramifications for humanity imaginable, should have the most stringent oversight imaginable. And at this point it’s not clear to me that this is the case:

Allegations about the proper treatment of lab animals may take on strange new meanings as scientists work their way up the evolutionary chart. First, human stem cells were injected into bacteria, then mice and now sheep. Such research blurs biological divisions between species that couldn’t until now be breached.

Drawing ethical boundaries that no research appears to have crossed yet, the Academies recommend a prohibition on mixing human stem cells with embryos from monkeys and other primates. But even that policy recommendation isn’t tough enough for some researchers.

“The boundary is going to push further into larger animals,” New York Medical College professor Stuart Newman said. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

Newman, along with bio technology gadfly Jeremy Rifkin, actually went so far as to patent a new life form – a combination human and chimpanzee they called a “humanzee” – that challenges the governments policy on both interspecies breeding and a corporation’s ability to patent life forms. The “humanzee” is theoretically possible so the patent office issued a ruling just this year denying their request on grounds that you cannot patent a human in that such a commercial venture would boil down to an issue of slavery.

I have nothing but admiration and respect for scientists like Chamberlain who are pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. My beef is that this is largely taking place below the radar of public discourse. As we seek to unlock the mysteries at the very heart of what it means to be human, are we in danger of redefining human life in ways that should be examined and agreed to by society in general?

Just recently, we got a taste of one kind of redefinition of human life in the Terri Schiavo matter. With little in the way of debate, scientists, ethicists, and proponents of euthanasia have quietly undermined the very concept of what it means to be human. The parameters regarding human life have been changed to include mythical criteria such as “quality of consciousness” and the medical costs associated with keeping someone like Terri alive. Despite almost total ignorance about what actually constitutes “consciousness,” we were told that Terri was less than human because her higher brain functions were disabled. Being less than human, she then became a piece of rotting meat, a sad sack of bones and water easily discarded by both the courts and her husband.

And now we’re faced with another ethical dilemma, this time regarding the very real possibility of human-animal hybrids being created so that we can harvest their body parts. While I’m not opposed in principle to the use of animals to save human lives, are we proceeding with all deliberate caution in this research effort? I’m heartened by the National Academies’ call for stringent oversight by sponsoring institutions of such projects. But the issue begs the age-old scientific question; just because we can do it, should it be done?

It used to be that an individual scientists’ ethics alone determined whether or not a scientific undertaking was moral. Reading about scientists like Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard who wrestled mightily with their own consciences when it came to their work on the Manhattan Project and the building of the first atomic weapon, one is left with the impression that, in the end, the exciting science being done outweighed any moral ambiguity the project may have caused.

Today, ethics panels across the nation are empowered to examine scientific inquiry and determine whether or not moral guidelines are being violated. These panels are made up of people who’ve studied ethics for a living and can cite chapter and verse in subjects like metaphysics and moral philosophy. But is it enough? Or perhaps a better question, are the issues involved too complex, too morally ambiguous to be resolved in this manner?

I don’t know the answer, being a layman. I do know that I’m unsure if all the physical and ethical ramifications of this kind of research are under scrutiny as they should be.

We can only hope that there are people like Dr. Newman and yes, even the moonbat Jeremy Rifkin, who will be there to put the brakes on if we go too far too fast. Otherwise, when this Brave New World comes to pass, we’ll be cowering in the shadows afraid of whatever society we’ve created as a result of these truly wondrous advances in human understanding.

It’s Friday and Marvin is in the House!

QUESTIONS I’D LIKE TO SEE ASKED AT SHRUB’S PRESS CONFERENCE (By Marvin Moonbat)

Watching our Chimp in Chief last night as he answered questions from the corporate media, I started to get mad. Chloe got so concerned she was actually worried that I’d something stupid…like pull a Randi Rhodes or something. She shouldn’t have worried so much. First of all, I don’t believe in violence…unless its for a good cause like the minutemen in Iraq. They’re fighting our murderous corporate army to free their country from the tyrannical grip of US imperialism. So I think we should give them all the support they deserve. But I’d never support doing anything violent against any of the repugnuts. I wouldn’t want to make a martyr out of them.

That being said I sure was pissed. Not so much at Bushitler but at the wimpy questions being asked by all those media toadies. So while Chloe and I sat there eating our recycled popcorn (Chloe takes all the kernels that don’t pop and recycles them…pretty neat, huh?) I came up with questions that I’d like to have asked the Smirker if I’d been at that press conference.

1. Mr. Chimp, according to the Secret Service Logs Jeff Gannon visited the White House 197 times before it was discovered he was a male prostitute and gay. Are you aware of any sexual relationships that Gannon may have had with White House staff? Did you personally ever sleep with Gannon? Did Karl Rove?

2. What are you going to do about the shortage of tin foil on college campuses. I saw a post on the Democratic Underground that the government was deliberately withholding supplies of tin foil so that people couldn’t protect themselves from the mind control practiced by Karl Rove. What are you going to do to close this “tin foil gap” and do you have any long term plans to insure a steady supply of tin foil in the future?

3. Recently, your Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said “I think the only people who could conceivably be talking about a draft are people who are speaking from pinnacles of near-perfect ignorance.” Have you considered firing him for this insult to those of us who are perfectly ignorant as opposed to “near perfect?” And now that we’re on the subject, when will you institute the draft? No kidding now…You can tell us…

4. What are your plans to tear up the constitution and set up a dictatorship? Will we still be able to get MTV?

5. Are you concerned with the fact that the Republicans control the White House and the Congress and appear to be much more popular than the Democrats? Wouldn’t it be fair to let the Democrats win one every once in a while?

6. Is it true that your Administration is building concentration camps for all non-Christians and that James Dobson and Jerry Falwell have already been designated as Camp Commandants? Is it true you called the rulers in Iran asking them for advice in how to set up a theocracy?

7. Are there really alien spaceships at Area 51? Is it true government scientists are keeping Big Foot in a cage at your Texas ranch? Would you allow PETA to check on the animals status so that we can be assured he’s not being mistreated?

That last question is from Chloe. She’s really into that kind of stuff. She says the Indians believe that Bigfoot exists so it must be true. When in doubt, she says, come down on the side of indigenous peoples. Otherwise, the evil spirits will take over your body and make you do bad things.

She can get a little carried away at times.

Anyway, those are the questions I’d ask if I were a reporter for a corporate media outlet. I’d never make it as a reporter though. First of all, looks like you have to wear a tie and I hate ties. Second, I haven’t had a haircut in 4 years and I wouldn’t get one now just on principle. Third, I reject the idea of work in general as I believe it to be beneath the dignity of a revolutionary like myself. All the great revolutionaries never worked a day in their life, they were supported by their followers. That sounds like a great idea to me.

Now all I have to do is get someone to follow me…

A Civil War re-enactor displays the Confederate Battle Flag which is different than the Official Flag of the Confederate States of America that you can see here.

It may have been the last time in history that such a sight was seen by mortal eyes.

Fifteen thousand men formed in 3 lines nearly 2 miles from end to end marching with lock step precision across 8/10 of a mile of open ground toward a barely discernible rise known locally as cemetery ridge – a name that forever after would be drenched in the blood of thousands of young men wearing both blue and gray. Snapping in the breeze were dozens of Confederate Battle Flags; the famous cross of St. Andrew on a red background with stars inset on the blue cross.

The majesty and color of the scene imparted a sense of awe and wonder to those watching. Robert E. Lee thought the scene “sublime.” Some of the boys in blue manning the stone wall at the top of the ridge actually cheered the Southerners good order. The visual must have been absolutely breathtaking.

Shortly thereafter came the shooting, the clubbing, and the stabbing as the nation’s most visible drama played out with an intensity not seen before or since.

The history of the Battle of Gettysburg says that the Union won. But the heritage of the battle belongs to the south.

Perhaps not so much today as the cloying grip of mass media has blurred the sectionalism so much responsible for that long ago conflict. But it’s also true that many southerners alive today are just one or two degrees of separation from that time in their history. After all, the last Civil War soldier lived until 1954. Many a southern grandfather can tell stories of long ago Fourth of July’s with some of those same boys that trudged up the ridge at Gettysburg, grown old and bent but still proud, marching in parades behind that most distinctive of American symbols.

Distinctive and yes, hurtful. For many Americans, the Confederate Battle Flag represents a hateful system that held human beings as chattel slaves. For them, there is no heritage only history; a shameful chronicle of rape, of whippings, of oppression that colors our politics and culture down to this very day.

The modern battle over the displaying and even the meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag has aroused emotions not seen since the darkest days of the struggle for civil rights in the 1960’s. The story of the people and emotions behind this struggle is told in a new book by John M. Coski “The Confederate Battle Flag : America’s Most Embattled Emblem .” Coski is library director for the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

In his excellent review of the book for The Weekly Standard, Edwin M. Yoder relates an anecdote about C. Vann Woodward, generally recognized as the greatest of all southern historians and the subject of the book’s dedication that reveals why southerners to this day are just a little bit different than the rest of us:

During the McCarthyist inquisition of the 1950s, he was once asked to certify that neither he nor his relatives had ever advocated the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. He was obliged to note that some of his ancestors had fought for the Confederacy and had contemplated exactly such mischief. Wit can defuse passionate differences.

Indeed, that’s usually the case. But in the matter of the Confederate Battle Flag those differences are too profound, too emotional to lend itself to anything but all out war.

Coski gives some post civil war history of the battle flag and in the process, destroys some cherished myths of its detractors:

It is not true, for instance, that we owe its negative symbolism to the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, Coski insists, the Kluxers made greater display of the Stars and Stripes, at least down into the KKK revival of the 1920s, when its ragtag and bobtail knights first seized on the Rebel banner as an emblem of racial and religious bigotry.

All along, such guardians as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans deplored this abuse. In 1948, when the hustings were loud with revivified Confederate rhetoric, and Dixiecrat rallies tended to be festooned with battle flags, the UDC pointedly condemned the flag’s use in “any political movement.”

Instead, the author points to the “flag fad” of the 1950’s when football fans and others used the emblem as a symbol of southern pride and school spirit leading one Atlanta editor to complain it had become “confetti in careless hands.”

Then came the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s and the battle flag took on a whole new meaning – that of southern resistance to both federal encroachment on states’ rights and the struggle to maintain Jim Crow segregation. In one way or another, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi incorporated the battle flag into their dissent. And that’s what has aroused the modern argument over the meaning and symbolism of the flag:

What has lately intensified the battle over the battle flag has been the struggle in four traditionalist southern states that had incorporated the battle flag in their state banners (Mississippi and Georgia), or flown it over their capitols (South Carolina and Alabama).

Mississippi had superimposed the battle flag on its state banner as far back as 1894. That gesture may have been connected with the so-called “redemption” of the state from federal control and black suffrage. But it obviously could have had nothing to do with the prolonged fight over school integration that prompted Georgia, in 1956, to make the battle flag part of its state flag as an explicit gesture of defiance.

Alabama Governor George Wallace famously flew the battle flag over the state capitol when Bobby Kennedy came down to discuss desegregating the University of Alabama. And South Carolina takes a perverse sort of pride in being the first state to secede from the Union following Lincoln’s election hence the flag has taken on iconic status as a symbol of the history of the state’s leadership.

This is what the NAACP and other opponents of the battle flag point to when demanding its eradication as a symbol of southern glory. But is that what the argument is really about? Coski doesn’t think so:

These latter-day battles, in any event, underscore one of Coski’s principal themes—namely, that flag flaps are actually surrogate conflicts over the meaning of the history allegedly symbolized, and in particular that of the Confederacy and the Civil War. This truism would seem to require no emphasis, except that the “history” invoked by the warriors for and against the battle flag is often of a quality so inferior as to make so-called “law office history” seem real.

One comes away from The Confederate Battle Flag with two signal reactions. One is that the warring parties need a cram course in semiology, the better to grasp the mundane truth that responses to signs and symbols vary with the beholder. I personally would enjoy dispatching to my remedial cram school some of the more volatile warriors—notably former senators Carol Moseley Braun and Jesse Helms, who conducted an emotional quarrel on the floor of the Senate in 1993 when Senator Moseley Braun persuaded her colleagues to deny the poor old UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy) a continued courtesy patent on its flag logo.

Does this mean we’re still essentially fighting the Civil War? In a large way, yes. When Coski talks about “law office history” he’s speaking of the broad brush approach to history most people take when talking about the Civil War. The North fought for “freedom for the slaves” while the South fought to keep their “peculiar institution. In fact, the war was about neither and both. Most of the Northern boys (with the exception of a few New England regiments where abolitionism was strongest) would have been shocked to discover they were fighting to free the slaves. As an example, when Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, several Northern units deserted vowing not to fight to free the black man.

Similarly, according to James McPherson nearly 95% of Lee’s army that fought at Gettysburg did not own a single slave.

Why all the shouting then? It comes down to perception and, in the end, an empathy with those who have suffered:

We hardly need to be reminded that we Americans squander much time, words, and emotion on phantom battles over vaguely defined symbolic issues, while avoiding dispassionate study of the past. I do agree with my old friend, the witty Chapel Hill sociologist John Shelton Reed, who usefully suggests that white southerners ought to learn from St. John Calhoun that his famous theory of the “concurrent majority” requires due consideration of minority views; that is, some consideration of the sense of black southerners that this flag is a symbol of servitude and oppression.

Personally, I can understand the symbolic power of the Battle Flag in that it remains to this day a potent talisman and touchstone of southern pride and patriotism. But in the clash of history versus heritage, the sheer ugliness associated with the chronicle of slavery must win out and the battle flag must be relegated to the dusty attics and dank cellars of southern homes perhaps to see the light of day again when its symbolism does not cause so much pain and anguish.

I’ve always liked and admired our neighbors to the north. Leaving aside the muckety-mucks from eastern Ontario and just about anyone from Quebec, there are no more generous, gracious, and well mannered people on the planet. Taciturn and a little gruff at times (no more so than New Englanders), the same guy in the bait shop who unsmilingly sells you two dozen minnows would five minutes later give you the shirt off his back to keep you warm when, in your tenderfooted ignorance, you capsize your canoe into the most mind-numbingly frigid water imaginable.

In fact, that’s my only real beef with Canada; it’s too cold. As a kid, we took family vacations in the North Woods of Michigan so the occasional cold snap in July that necessitated the novelty of a roaring fire in the drafty old cottage’s fireplace was something I was used to. But Canada in July is different. Even when it’s warm – say around 80 degrees – there’s a whisper on the wind that speaks of coolness. It penetrates your skin all the way to your bones so that you’re never entirely comfortable without wearing a light jacket of some kind.

I think the windbreaker was invented in Canada.

In short, the Canadian people. like most people who live in democracies, are the salt of the earth. Also, like most people who live in democracies, they are in the aggregate much better humans than the people they’ve elected to represent them. It’s said that people who live in democratic societies get the kind of government they deserve. That just simply isn’t true. People don’t deserve to be lied to. They don’t deserve to be stolen from. And they don’t deserve to be treated as wayward children who need to have a bunch of bureaucratic nannies controlling every aspect of their lives. I would venture a guess that the saying about deserving a specific kind of government was invented by a liberal to explain why governments fail to live up to our modest expectations of honesty, integrity, and healthy libertarianism.

The truth of the matter is a little more prosaic; since governments are made up of imperfect human beings, we’re bound to be disappointed by them. The only thing that keeps us from going nuts is the realization we can try the whole miserable experiment again with another bunch of imperfect humans when elections roll around.

And this is what Canada will be facing in the next couple of months. It seems pretty clear that the Conservative Party is about ready to call for a no confidence vote in Parliament that, if successful, would bring about elections in late May or June:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday he has made up his mind and will ask his caucus on Monday to vote in favor of a non-confidence motion against the minority Liberal government at the earliest opportunity.

“This is not the way that parliament should ever work,” Harper said in a speech in Amherstberg, Ontario. “It’s the most disgraceful thing I’ve seen in all my years on Parliament Hill.

“This not how Parliament should work and as soon as we get back I will be asking our caucus to put this government out of its misery at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Harper is referring, of course, to the Adscam scandal whose revelations have rocked not only Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal Party government, but also threatened a unified Canada. Ed Morrisey explains:

One of the bitter ironies of the Canadian Adscam scandal involves the status of Quebec. Originally, the government launched the Sponsorship Program as a public-relations effort to convince Quebeckers that they are a vital part of the Canadian federation, hoping to combat the separatists that had gained enough political power to force a referendum on independence—which lost, but only narrowly, a few years ago. After seeing $250 million of Canadian tax money disappear into the pockets of Liberal Party activists and the party coffers, however, the momentum away from separatism has been reversed. Now 54% of Quebec favors separation from Canada in some form.

Harper is also referring to one of the more cynical and shameless moves I’ve ever seen a politician make; Martin’s desperation deal with the ultra-liberal NDP party on the government’s budget that incorporates many of the leftists’ legislative priorities into the budget process. It’s a shameless move on the part of both Martin and NDP leader Jack Layton because Martin has sold out his own party’s legislative agenda for the sole purpose of garnering NDP votes in any no confidence motion in Parliament. And Layton has made a deal with a corrupt government to boost his party’s electoral prospects with Canadian moonbats by giving them things near and dear to their hearts:

Layton said new areas of spending would include investments in education and training, an acceleration of the gas tax transfer to the provinces, a “significant investment” in building more affordable housing and an increase in foreign aid.

All this is new spending not included in Finance Minister Ralph Goodale’s budget.

Another sign of desperation has Martin and his ministers criss-crossing Canada in what the Canadian press has cynically dubbed “The Sorry as Hell” tour:

Critics are fuming over the Liberal government’s tax-funded cross-country travels they’re dubbing the “Sorry as Hell Tour.” Prime Minister Paul Martin, cabinet ministers and Grit MPs have been fanning out across the country, doling out goodies on a national image-boosting exercise.

Calling it a “deja vu” of last year’s “Mad as Hell Tour,” John Williamson, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, insisted the Liberals should be footing the bill for partisan events.

Good luck with that, Mr. Williamson. Trying to shame a politician into doing the right thing is a futile exercise – especially when it comes to their political survival.

Even though the Conservatives hold a lead over Martin’s sticky fingered Liberals, it remains to be seen whether or not the Tories can win an absolute majority in Parliament that would give them the levers of government. At 99 seats, the Conservatives would have to win 54 additional seats in an election to unseat Martin. Theoretically, they could win less than that and try to create a coalition with the Bloc Quebec party who currently hold 54 seats themselves but the price for those votes may be too high. In which case, there would be a real scramble for power with some good old fashioned back room dealing that would make the survivor of such a scenario the proprietor of a pretty shaky government.

Alas, the Canadian people deserve better.

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

UPDATE

Angry in the Great White North has an excellent but disturbing post on something that Captain Ed touched on; the break up of the Canadian nation:

Federal money goes in large quantities to Quebec in order to entice them to stay in Confederation, to keep that single leg upright and continue to prop up the country. It’s no wonder that many want to secede. For them, it is a mixture of a desire to make their own future unfettered by concerns in other parts of the country, other parts that have given up on their original role in keeping Canada together. It is also a realization that the effort spent by the Rest of Canada on keeping Quebec would probably better be spent on their own problems and on their own future.

The Rest of Canada is coming to that realization now. Anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more people in the Rest of Canada would just skip a referendum altogether and just send Quebec on its way. With all three legs gone, the system would collapse completely. But this might not be a bad thing in the end. Any engineer will tell you that a system that is wildly unstable is dangerous. It is also expensive, requiring constant work and input of energy to remain in a quasi-stable state. If it allowed to collapsed, the components will seek the low-energy state. From there a new system can be created, hopefully in a new configuration that is highly stable.

Read the whole thing.

It’s going to happen again. Terrorists will strike somewhere in America and, as every expert has said since September 12, 2001, it will happen sooner than later.

Then why in the name of God has this country rolled over on its collective side, hit the snooze button, pulled the covers up over its head and gone back to sleep?

Tony Blankley has a column today that asks the same question:

But I have to say that the public has let me down, some. It is less than four years since the September 11 wake-up call — the day that the murderous malice of our enemy was so tragically compounded by years of Washington inattention and incompetence — but after that rude awakening, it seems both Washington and the public have hit the snooze button.

After December 7 the public expected action — and plenty of it. From that day on until almost the day he died, FDR rarely let a day go by without vigorously acting on and talking about the threat and how to defeat it.

But after a flurry of energy and bold and courageous actions from the Bush administration in the first couple of years, one has the sense that things have returned to business as usual.

Is it something in our national character that allows us to be so sublimely unaware of danger? Or is it some flaw that goes deeper; a true ignorance of the peril we’re in coupled with a willful blindness that shuts out the unpleasantness and darkness that pervades so much of the planet?

Whatever it is, it’s going to cost us dearly. Blankley takes the Democrats to task for attacking the President from the wrong side of the debate – the side that advocates less firm measures to counter the implacability of our enemies. He speculates what would have happened with a Democrat in the White House:

It may turn out to be the second tragedy of our time that the president’s opposition has criticized him from the weak side of the war effort. If a Democrat had been president on Sept. 11, it is a virtual certainty that the Republican Party (in recent generations the more aggressive military party) would have kept up a daily barrage for the president to do more. They would be howling at the fact that only 5 percent of the cargo containers entering our country’s ports are inspected on or before arrival by American inspectors.

They would be chastising a notional Democratic president for not building up the size of the active and reserve forces of our military. They would surely have held hearings demanding that the Pentagon explain how it would actually invade and occupy, say, Syria, Iran and Pakistan while also holding Iraq and Afghanistan and fulfilling all the other worldwide responsibilities we have assigned to our troops, with the current strength levels — should such actions be judged necessary for our national security.

All of these are legitimate criticisms of the President and I would add a few others. I believe the President’s gravest mistake has been in carrying on with his domestic agenda as if we weren’t at war. This has not only caused people to forget the price we’re paying in Iraq and Afghanistan with our young men’s blood and nearly $300 billion in national treasure, it has caused massive federal deficits that can be brought down only through huge cuts in entitlement programs and/or hefty tax increases. Given that the political will to do either is sorely lacking, the deficits remain and could become a drag on the economy if the nation’s economic recovery were to stall.

Will it take another massive attack by terrorists to finally wake us up to what needs to be done? According to this article in the Washington Times, the possibility that the murderous thugs who are targeting America will once again use airplanes to assail us would seem improbable after 9/11. Indeed, the story referenced in the article was widely ridiculed on the left and generally scoffed at by so-called air line security professionals.

If this were the case, why is the Department of Homeland Security still investigating the incident?

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general is investigating an incident involving 14 Syrian passengers aboard a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles last summer described by many federal air marshals and passengers as a dry run for a terrorist attack.

The investigation began shortly after the June 29 incident, but did not become public until the final phase of the inquiry when passengers reported facing hours of questioning in March from inspectors.

The interviewed passengers said the questioning by inspectors suggested the flight had faced a serious situation. Some federal officials have dismissed the incident and suggested passengers had overreacted and were never in danger.

The incident was written about by Annie Jacobsen in womenswallstreet.com.” The truly scary thing is that to this day, no one is sure exactly what those 14 Syrian passengers were doing. Why did their actions scare the heck out of dozens of passengers and cause so much concern that federal agents met the plane when it landed? And if, as some have suggested, the passengers were unduly alarmed, why the continued interest? And how the heck in the aftermath of 9/11 could the feds not have checked their visas?

Just before landing, seven of the men stood in unison and went inside the restrooms. Upon returning to his seat, the last man mouthed the word “no” as he ran his finger across his throat.

At least four other passengers also were questioned, and learned from inspectors that the musicians from the terrorist-sponsor state of Syria had traveled back and forth across the country with one-way, cash-paid tickets, and entered the country on P-3 cultural visas. Two months prior to the flight, the FBI issued a warning that terrorists may be trying to enter the country under P-3 cultural or sports visas.

When the men were detained briefly for questioning after the flight, only two of the 14 were questioned and officials did not notice the men’s visas had expired, inspectors said.

Is this political correctness run amok? Or do we really have a bunch of scatter-brained dullards in charge of protecting us?

Annie Jacobsen received an enormous amount of flack for telling her story. Since then, other passengers from that flight have come forward to corroborate her story. The Federal Air Marshals, who have a vested interest in downplaying the threat due to their lack of action against the Syrians, have stopped talking. In the meantime, other passengers from other flights have told of similar possible “dry runs” by terrorists.

Can we come to any other possible conclusion except the brutal fact that not only are we going to be hit again but that more than 3 1/2 years after the unthinkable happened we’re still not doing enough to protect ourselves?

SHHHHH…Go back to sleep now…Nothing to worry about.

The last two days have seen two stories appear in two newspapers about the same report; The Iraq Survey Group’s Final Report on the search for WMD’s in Iraq. One would think that given both the Washington Post and Washington Times were looking at the same document, both publications would report the same conclusions. After all, that’s the whole purpose of a final report; we’ve spent a couple of hundred million dollars and Congress and the American people want to know what the experts have found.

Turns out, the experts can’t make up their minds.

Here’s the meat from the Washington Post story dated 4/26:

U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.

Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators “found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD.” Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein’s government, however, the investigators were “unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.”

That’s a fair assessment if you read the gist of the report published here.

But today, the Washington Times came to a significantly different conclusion:

The CIA’s chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing “sufficiently credible” evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.

Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year. He said the search for WMD in Iraq—the main reason President Bush went to war to oust Saddam Hussein—has been exhausted without finding such weapons. Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s.

But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. “ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war,” Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA’s Web site Monday night.

So which is it? Did Syria collaborate with Saddam to spirit WMD’s across the border in the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq? Or didn’t they?

Back in February, I did a post on a story that appeared in the Daily Telegraph detailing the outrageous behavior of UN weapons inspectors who got drunk in their hotel rooms while huge convoys of trucks were moved right under their noses from Iraq to the Syrian border:

UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday.

In a move that provoked fury from officials of the Swiss firm Cotecna, an Australian former inspector detailed a picture of incompetence, indifference and drunkeness among the men acting as the frontline for UN sanctions.

Then there was the Russian connection to the large scale movement of trucks to Syria prior to the invasion:

“The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units,” Mr. Shaw said. “Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units.”

“Most of Saddam’s most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.”

The evidence gathered by the Duelfer group would seem to point to the total absence of WMD in Iraq prior to the invasion. But all of these comings and goings between Iraq and Syria prior to the war would also seem to indicate the Saddam was shipping something to Damascus that he didn’t want to fall into enemy hands.

Somehow, I have the feeling it wasn’t baby formula.

These two stories bring to mind the old political joke told by every President since at least Herbert Hoover about the Chief Executive wishing for a one armed economist because all of his advisors were saying “on the one hand…and on the other hand…”

Perhaps if events play out in Syria where democracy were to triumph, we may someday unravel the mystery of what the heck was being shipped to that country in the weeks prior to the war. Until then, we’re stuck wishing for a one armed WMD expert.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

UPDATE:

Right Voices believes that even if no WMD was found, going to war with Iraq was still worth it:

Yet, I still strongly believe in our having invaded Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime from power. The report also stated that the missing equipment was never located and it could have easily been given to terrorists and/or insurgents to produce chemical and biological agents.

Spot on. The link between Hizballah in Lebanon and Syria is well established as the terrorist group’s armed militia acted as enforcer for Bashir Assad’s bully boys. Now that Syria is ostensibly out of Lebanon, it remains to be seen what Hizballah will do. Will they maintain close relations with Syria? Not if they want to accomplish anything in the political arena in Lebanon. It will be political death to be seen as a toady for Assad. My guess would be that Hizballah will lean more heavily on their sponsors in Tehran – which does not bode well for Israel or us for that matter.

Captain Ed nails CNN for ignoring Duelfer’s conclusions, concentrating instead on his statement that no official communication between Saddam and Syria could be found that pointed to a WMD transfer. Yeah…like this is something they’re gonna write down? On paper?

Had Duelfer and the ISG meant to conclusively state that no WMD transfers of any kind had occurred, it would not have been left as a footnote or an addendum. That usage indicates an explanation for an unfulfilled mandate of the mission, not a positive conclusion, as a close read of the language used indicates.

I try not to believe that there’s deliberate spinning of the facts in a case like this where the MSM pulls things out of context to make a political point. But with the facts staring you in the face as it does with the difference between the Post story yesterday and the Times today, what else are we to believe?

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), long time liberal spokesman and noted underwater driving enthusiast was arrested today and charged with Impersonating an American Citizen. The action came after Kennedy published an incoherent fantasy celebrating the one year anniversary of the revelations of prisoner hazing and mistreatment at Abu Ghraib.

Kennedy spokesman Mark Smith called the charges “outrageous” and promised to prove that Kennedy is, in fact, a loyal American citizen.

“We haven’t said anything that hasn’t been printed in al Jazeera.” Smith said. “And our statements on the matter mirror very closely the opinions of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi . What more proof do you need?” he added.

Zarqawi is wanted by American authorities in Iraq for numerous bombings and beheadings. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

In addition to Kennedy’s statement that experts say shows evidence of a degenerative brain disorder brought about by many years of alchohol and drug abuse as well as high caloric intake and a hormonal imbalance from an overactive sex drive, the Senator sponsored other Abu Ghraib anniversary activities that are currently under investigation, including:

1. A re-eneactment of simulated sex acts at the prison with female staff members playing the part of prisoners and Kennedy, a whip in one hand a glass of scotch in the other reportedly urging one staffer to “ride that cowgirl like there’s no tomorrow” while having another aide pouring copious amounts of Wesson Vegetable oil on the naked, writhing bodies of other staffers impersonating the prisoners.

Also on hand were ex-President Bill Clinton, who reportedly was eager to participate in the festivities but was whopped over the head for even suggesting it by his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton who was also present.

2. A game of naked Twister where participants were to hold the most uncomfortable positions imaginable for as long as possible while Kennedy and other participants showered contestants with creme de menthe cocktails and Dramboui.

3. “Bobbing for Iraqi Apples” with Kennedy holding the contestants head under water until they either got an apple or revealed embarassing personal information about themselves. Ex President Clinton declined to participate despite the urging of his wife Hillary who was said to be interested in “What the hell he was doing in Jakarta with the Indonesian Minister of Female Sports (former Supermodel ‘Tuti Fruti’) until 4:00 AM.”

Kennedy was released on $5000 bond and the promise that he would leave the country immediately and return only when he grew up and started acting like an adult who realized there’s a war on and that we’re not involved in a touch football game at Hyannis Port.

UPDATE

While blogging a colloquy on C-Span between Sens. Reid and McConnell regarding the judicial nominations, Michell Malkin reports a suprise. Who should raise his ugly visage to celebrate the Abu Ghraib anniversery? None other than Ted (“I thought cars floated)”) Kennedy. She links to a piece by Arthur Chrenkoff well worth the read.

Also, Ace has the right idea...at least the headline:

Ted Kennedy Celebrates Abu Ghraib Anniversary By Getting Drunk, Removing Pants In Palm Beach Restaurant

The indecisiveness of President “Jellyfish” Logan in dealing first with the interrogation of Pardo and then with the aftermath of his blunder in trying to arrest Jack for personal reasons gives us a glimpse into why Presidential leadership in a national crisis is so profoundly important. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.” The elevation of Logan to the Presidency has, in the crucible of crisis, revealed a petty, equivocal, sniveling wimp of a man whose predilection for blaming others for his own blunders as well as his whining, self pitying rant about “not deserving to be President” proves him unworthy of high office.

And this puts the United States in quite a pickle, doesn’t it? When the President freezes as Logan did, the consequences can be unthinkable. During the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy very deservedly got high marks for managing the crisis expertly. He went by the dictum that “In a crisis, if something needs to be done immediately, it’s probably too late to make a difference.” By first keeping the crisis a secret and then carefully managing information given to the public, he was able to direct his cabinet and the national security apparatus toward the dual goals of avoiding war and getting the missiles out of Cuba. And while his secret deal (not revealed until a couple of years ago) to trade our missiles in Turkey for the Cuban weapons has taken some of the luster off JFK’s accomplishment, it was nevertheless a classic example of good crisis management.

This exchange reveals the barely concealed contempt Novik feels toward his cowardly boss:

NOVIK: CTU is waiting for us to call them back with a directive. What do you want to do, (long pause. Said with disgust) Mr. President?

LOGAN: I have no idea. And that’s the problem isn’t it?

Indeed. A real life example of Presidential hesitation and indecision can be found in President Clinton’s surreal screw up in not killing Osama bin Laden when we had him dead to rights.

The story is told in Buzz Patterson’s eye opening book “Dereliction of Duty.” Patterson carried the nuclear football for nearly two years and also functioned as one of the President’s military aides at that time. He was in a unique position to judge not only the character but the performance of the man in a crisis.

The story of Clinton losing the pocket code book containing nuclear strike options would be unbelievable if not confirmed by a secret service agent. The book is worth reading just to understand that one episode of Clinton’s assault on the military. But there was more; how he and his refugees from the 1970’s aides made military personnel wear civilian clothing because they despised the armed services and how Clinton himself denigrated Patterson’s service are other astonishing insights into how the military declined precipitously during the Clinton years. And then there was the bin Laden incident.

Clinton was playing in a celebrity golf tournament when word came from the CIA that they believed they had bin Laden in the cross hairs of an armed UAV. The drone was circling a training camp in Afghanistan and the CIA needed immediate authorization to launch the weapon to kill the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in American history. According to Patterson, Clinton froze. He continued his hobnobbing with celebrities, telling Patterson he would “get back to him” with an answer. When Patterson approached him again requesting that Clinton make a decision, the President angrily brushed him off. In the end, the opportunity went by the boards and bin Laden went on to bigger and more destructive things.

The point is simple; no one knows how a President will react until the crisis is upon them. A reasonable case can be made that the 9/11 attack that gut punched America also temporarily threw President Bush off his game. By the time he got back to Washington, Bush had recovered and subsequently performed spectacularly from then on. The lesson is that we must choose our Presidents carefully. Character does matter and will continue to do so as long as we’re at war with such implacable, murderous foes.

SUMMARY

More bad news for Jack as Audrey discovers his “interrogation” of Pardo involved a little bit of arm twisting (and knuckle breaking). Audrey is shocked, just shocked do you hear that Jack would disobey the President. In Audrey’s nice cozy perch inside the beltway, these things just aren’t done. Bill Buchanan attempts to set her straight:

BILL: In this case, I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.

AUDREY: What kind of answer is that?

BILL: The answer is it worked. We got Marwan’s location. With all due respect Audrey this is not Washington, DC. Politics and policy do not always work on the frontlines which is where we are today.

AUDREY: Charles Logan is a politician and he’s not going to give you forgiveness. I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt you or Jack.

BILL: If what we did gets us to Marwan, we’ll live with it.

Spoken like a true warrior/bureaucrat. I like Bill immensely. He’s a stand-up guy which is what’s most important in a boss. He’ll take the heat when necessary and he cares about his staff.

When Logan finds out that Jack disobeyed his instruction not to harm Pardo, he suddenly finds some decisiveness and orders his arrest. The milquetoast is strong as hell when his own ego is involved. What a weasel!

Marwan’s crew in Iowa begins to configure the weapon’s trigger so they can fire it. To that end, they’ve enlisted one Sabeer Ardakani, an engineer with an inquisitive girlfriend. And we know what happens to inquisitive girlfriends, don’t we. Just ask Behruzz and his ex girlfriend Debbie. You remember Debbie. She’s the one poisoned by dearly departed Dina and who now lies in a shallow grave in the hills above LA.

Jack and Curtis prepare to move in on the nightclub where Marwan is hiding out. Marwan is in the process of making the tape that will be broadcast after the bomb has gone off. It’s standard terrorist boilerplate but begs the question; why make the damn thing now? Why take the chance of it falling into CTU hands and giving your enemy the chance to stop you? Why not make the damn tape after the bomb goes off?

The answer to these questions is pure ego. The ecstatic look on Marwan’s face when he’s talking about the destructive power of the bomb finally reveals this pig to be an overweening egoist with delusions of grandeur. We got a taste of this when he was holding Jack in the warehouse and bragged to Jack that American leaders wouldn’t show their faces in public again after this day. The long and short of it is that he’s a nutball, a loon, a certified egomaniac with a god complex. This makes him an extremely dangerous man.

Just in the nick of time to save Marwan, the Secret Service shows up to arrest Jack. When Jack points out that he’s in the middle of a super secret operation and that he’s penetrated the terrorists hideout and lies in a concealed position, the secret service doesn’t care. Come out now or we’re coming in, the agent says. Of course, as Agent Castle makes his way across no man’s land to try and relieve Jack so he can be arrested, Marwan’s look-out spots him and the jig is up. Marwan escapes through the sewer system and, after offing the cameraman, Jack is left with the damning tape made by Marwan. The SS guys promptly arrest him, only to release him minutes later when President Jellyfish changes his mind.

In the meantime, Mike Novik (who appears to be playing a good guy this time around…so far) suggests that President Milquetoast call in someone with experience who can advise him. That someone turns out to be ex-President and insurance pitchman Palmer. Can’t wait for that first meeting between Palmer and Logan. Five bucks gets you ten that he slaps the weasel around to try and bring him out of it.

Sabeer’s suspicious girlfriend calls CTU with disturbing info about her boyfriend. Seems there’s more information on Ardakani’s computer but it’s encrypted. Now…who can we send to the girlfriend’s house to unlock the computer’s secrets? Who has the knowledge, the expertise, and the courage to go out into the field and help save our country from these implacably hostile terrorists? Who else but the analyst you love to hate, Chloe!

“I’m not a field agent” she tells Bill and don’t we know it. But she bravely soldiers on, calling fat geek Edgar to make sure everything is being done to insure her safety (heh). She nervously tells Edgar:

CHLOE: Why did they ask me to do this? I really hate it.

FGE: When you were prepping, I asked Bill if I could go instead of you. He wouldn’t let me. He said you were the best analyst we have. He’s right.

CHLOE: I know.

I KNOW! She’s a bitch…but she;s our bitch!

Before Chloe can get started though, she’s rudely interrupted by an assassin sent to take care of Ardakani’s talkative girlfriend. After a hair raising chase, Chloe ends up with a rifle at which point she makes like Sigourney Weaver confronting the mama Alien and kills the assassin dead.

Ten bucks gets you twenty she doesn’t shed a tear about the episode.

BODY COUNT

Jack pings the cameraman. The assassin offs two CTU agents (plus a nosy neighbor). And Chloe becomes an action figure doll.

Jack: 40

Show: 221

Chloe: 1 (just because she’d love the recognition).

SPECULATION

The target city for the bomb is still unknown. I’m a little less certain this week that it’s Chicago based on the fact that the terrorists are now too far away from the Windy City to make it before sun-up. And since Marwan wanted that tape delivered to TV stations before dawn, we have to assume the attack will take place sometime before then.

How about my old stomping grounds of Des Moines? A nuke going off in Des Moines (or Peoria) would make sense (to a terrorist) in that it would prove “no one was safe.” Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be good enough. Stay tuned.

I’d like to extend a hearty and heartfelt welcome to all the registered nutcases and fruit flies at the Democratic Underground! Welcome to the House!

This is the second time someone from your illustrious, albeit clueless conglomeration of kool-aid drinking clapsaps has linked to my humble abode.

And yes…I am a right wing nut.

But don’t let that stop you from becoming a regular visitor. I always appreciate opposing viewpoints no matter how stupid and outrageous they may be, Plus, I value the input from people who have a different perspective of life…even though that perspective is sometimes impossible to recognize as coming from planet earth.

Besides…I need the traffic.

Finally, I’d like to thank you for the endless supply of blog fodder you and your clueless cohorts provide. The House just wouldn’t be the same without ya!

The results are in and once again, the House is triumphant! My post on Paul Revere’s ride “Founding Brother” narrowly prevailed in this week’s Watcher’s Vote. I had to beat out some pretty stiff competition including the second place winner “NARCISSISM AND SOCIETY: Part I” from the good Doctor Sanity.

The winning non-Council post was from Terrorism Unveiled entitled “A Change in Tactics.” The runner-up was “Unholy Alliance: Mubarak & the Muslim Brotherhood” from Rantings of a Sandmonkey.
In addition to those excellent posts above, you can visit Watcher of Weasels for more excellent writing from across the blogosphere. If you’d like to participate in the vote, read and follow the instructions here.

Finally, a spot has opened up in the Council’s membership. If you’re interested in applying, read all about it here.