Right Wing Nut House

One would think that more than most subjects our children are learning in school, the physical sciences would be immune from the pressures of outside interest groups intent on imposing cultural relativism and multicultural “sensitivity” on the curricula. After all, unlike history or literature, science relies on empiricism and objective observation to resolve the mysteries of the universe. And the kind of interference associated with the multiculturalists would seem to be irrelevant when it comes to learning about universal laws like gravity or thermodynamics.

I am very sorry to disappoint you:

Several centuries ago, some “very light-skinned” people were shipwrecked on a tropical island. After “many years under the tropical sun,” this light-skinned population became “dark-skinned,” says Biology: The Study of Life, a high-school textbook published in 1998 by Prentice Hall, an imprint of Pearson Education.

“Downright bizarre,” says Nina Jablonski, who holds the Irvine chair of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. Jablonski, an expert in the evolution of skin color, says it takes at least 15,000 years for skin color to evolve from black to white or vice versa. That sure is “many years.” The suggestion that skin color can change in a few generations has no basis in science.

Pearson Education spokesperson Wendy Spiegel admits the error in describing the evolution of skin color, but says the teacher’s manual explains the phenomenon correctly. Just why teachers are given accurate information while students are misled remains unclear.

An isolated example? Hardly. And if it were only the moonbat left, it would be easy to dismiss as one more example of political correctness run rampant. Unfortunately, Christian idiotarians want to get in the act too:

A six-day courtroom-style debate opened on Thursday in Kansas over what children should be taught in schools about the origin of life — was it natural evolution or did God create the world?

The hearings, complete with opposing attorneys and a long list of witnesses, were arranged amid efforts by some Christian groups in Kansas and nationally to reverse the domination of evolutionary theory in the nation’s schools.

William Harris, a medical researcher and co-founder of a Kansas group called the Intelligent Design Network, posed the core question about life’s beginnings before mapping out why he and other Christians want changes in school curriculum.

School science classes are teaching children that life evolved naturally and randomly, Harris said, arguing that this was in conflict with Biblical teachings that God created life

What is going on here? While the goals of the moonbats and idiotarians are different, the motivations behind the meddling in science curricula are similar; to bend science to fit a specific worldview. While it’s pretty easy to make fun of “monkey trials” and attempts to equate tribal shamans with medical doctors, the sad fact is that by fiddling with the way science is taught, our children are the ones who suffer the consequences.

And those consequences could be devastating to both the country and the schoolchildren. When our kids grow up they must compete in a world where more than any other time in history, science will play a large part in the world’s economy:

In a field long dominated by the United States (with more than 1,300 U.S. biotech firms, compared with about 700 in all of Europe), the global competition is increasingly intense.

Britain, of course, was first out of the gate in starting its own biotech industry back in the mid-1980s when the outbreak of brain rotting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a form of bovine spongiform encephalopathies (BSE, or “mad cow disease”), first gathered public attention. 3 Britain now has 560 biotech companies. Of 70 or so publicly traded biotech concerns in Europe, half are British. This includes the grandfather of British biotech firms, Celtech, which pioneered drugs that exploit the body’s own antibodies to combat disease, and who posted a profit this year for the first time. Britain has approved its first three biotech products this year: a new anesthetic and treatments for migraines and Alzheimer’s disease.

The Netherlands-based firm Qiagen is the leading manufacturer of products for purifying genetic material such as proteins and nucleic acids; its products are now being used in most labs around the world.

The Swedish firm Prosequencing has become a technological leader in making systems for automated DNA sequence analysis, which is essential for mining the rich vein of data in the human genome.

It’s clear that biotechnology is a growth industry whose products promise to change our world in ways that are unfathomable to us today. The question is are our children going to run those bio tech factories? Or are they going to be sweeping the floors of factories owned by the Brits or Swedes?

It doesn’t help when pressure groups try and influence textbook publishers to put out stuff like this:

Jews have been awarded 22 percent of all Nobel Prizes in science, but readers of Houghton Mifflin’s fifth-grade textbooks won’t get wind of that. Navajo physicist Fred Begay, however, merits half a page for his study of Navajo medicine. Albert Einstein isn’t mentioned. Biologist Clifton Poodry has made no noteworthy scientific discoveries, but he was born on the Tonawanda Seneca Indian reservation, so his picture is shown in Glenco/McGraw-Hill’s Life Science (2002), a middle-school biology textbook. The head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, and Nobel Laureates James Watson, Maurice H.F. Wilkins, and Francis Crick aren’t named.

No Einstein? The man whose theories revolutionized the world isn’t even mentioned? And the three men - Waston, Crick and Wilkins - who unlocked the secrets of the structure of DNA, the biological basis for all life on earth are similarly ignored?

This kind of selective cultural memory is eerily reminiscent of tactics used by the Nazis when they purged their physical sciences of the names and even the achievements of Jewish scientists creating what they called “German” Physics and “German” Biology.

Nobel Prize winning physicist Hans Bethe believed that this kind of nonsense set the German atomic bomb program back significantly. He argued that when you throw out the theories of Einstein, Neils Bohr and others based solely on the fact that they were Jewish, there was no way the complexities involved in constructing an atomic bomb would be uncovered.

So there are extraordinary dangers when science education is subverted to serve some social engineering scheme. Not only does it do an injustice to history, it also poses a danger to the way that textbooks are written:

A study commissioned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 2001 found 500 pages of scientific error in 12 middle-school textbooks used by 85 percent of the students in the country. One
misstates Newton’s first law of motion. Another says humans can’t hear elephants. Another confuses “gravity” with “gravitational acceleration.” Another shows the equator running through the United States. Individual scientists draft segments of these books, but reviewing the final product is sometimes left to multicultural committees who have no expertise in science.

“Thousands of teachers are saddled with error-filled physical science textbooks,” wrote John Hubisz, a physics professor at North Carolina State University at Raleigh and the author of the report. “Political correctness is often more important than scientific accuracy. Middle-school text publishers now employ more people to censor books than they do to check facts.”

United States students are currently ranked 19th out of 21 leading industrialized countries when it comes to science. With attacks on objective scientific education by both the left and the right, the question must be asked: Why can’t Johnny dream? More than any other subject, science opens our minds to the staggering possibilities for acquiring knowledge about both the biggest and the smallest parts of our universe. And if that knowledge is dependent on being taught in such a way as to take into account the cultural sensitivities of students rather than the objective truths discovered through the ages, then Johnny will be left behind by those who don’t pay any attention to such nonsense.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

Lean Left blogs the Kansas Idiotarians and makes a plaintive cry for sanity:

This is not about science – it is about using science classes to indoctrinate children in one particular version of religion. Nothing more. That needs to be said. loudly and often.

Agreed. But will the left make equally loud noises about about the multiculturalists and their fanatic attempts to destroy science education by making it more important to take into account a student’s cultural background than get the facts right?

This weeks Watcher’s Vote is in and the winners are:

In the Council category, Carpe Bonum’s excellent post on the status of our forgotten hostages in Iraq entitled : “Hostages: Time for America to Act.”

And in the Non-Council category New Sisyphus’s “The Great Islamic Warrior: Stewardresses, Elementary Schoolchildren and Wounded Crash Survivors.”

Congratulations to this week’s winners!

Marvin Moonbat is in the House!

IT’S NOT GOOD TO BE DEPRESSED (By Marvin Moonbat)

Chloe and I both stayed home from school today. For my part, I’m not missing much. The professor in my “A Post Imperial World: The Rise of Indigenous Peoples and “Rainforest Power” class has become insufferably long winded. He used to be pretty cool. The class (there are three of us) used to start out by discussing the oppression of indigenous peoples all over the world. After a while, we’d link the grievances of say American Indians with episodes of our favorite TV shows. It was great!. Drawing parallels between the “Trail of Tears and MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” was always a challenge.

Then someone ratted the prof out to the Anti-Imperialst studies Dean and that was that. Now, instead of talking about the latest life-changing automobile metamorphisis, we’re stuck listening to this wind bag drone on forever about how indigineous people live, what they believe, and all that stuff that no-one really wants to hear about…except Chloe. Chloe is dead serious about this crap and I’ve learned its better to humor her about this than risk not being able to play “hide the salami” with her for a week or so.

Anyway, we woke up this morning and as we were drinking our recycled coffee, we came across this item that really bummed us both:

What Didn’t Happen In Ohio
Russ Baker

Back in January, I wrote a piece for TomPaine.com questioning widely circulated claims that the election in Ohio had been stolen. I had done some poking around, anticipating that at least some of the frightening anecdotes filling our mail boxes and raging on talk radio would be borne out. In spot checks on a few popular fraud anecdotes, I found credible alternative explanations such as incompetence, structural problems, politicization of decision-making and other failings— but no evidence of deliberate fraud designed to hand the election to Bush.

It was like losing all over again.

To have one of our own actually go out and prove the Bushitler didn’t steal the Ohio election is like a betrayal of everything we stand for.

The dummy should have let well enough alone. After all, it’s one thing to say there are things that have to be looked into as far as election irregularities in Ohio. It’s quite another to actually prove that there’s no conspiracy.

What’s Keith Olberman going to do now? What are they going to talk about on “Air America?” Will Daily Kos and The Democratic Underground now shut down because there’s nothing left to investigate?

And if that’s not bad enough, we had our friends in Britain betray us by re-electing that American lap dog Tony Blair. I mean, I just can’t understand it. We’ve now had three elections in the English speaking world and all three - John Howard in Australia, Tony Blair in England, and our very own smirking chimp - reelected even though the Iraq war has proven to be a disaster. Don’t people realize that some really smart people have said the Iraq war is wrong? I mean, I know most of what these smart people have said would happen in Iraq hasn’t happened, what with the successful elections and forming a government and all. And it’s not their fault that they didn’t see that with the successful elections in Iraq democracy would break out all over the middle east. I mean, who could have predicted that? No one did, as far as I know.

So Chloe and I got hit by a double whammy of bad news this morning and we both decided to protest by not going to class. For a while, I kind of thought that we could use the time off to get “reacquainted” with each other so to that end, I got out the really good ganja
and started to roll a really fat one but Chloe stopped me dead in my tracks. What kind of protest is it if we get high and lollygag about in bed all day, she asked.

So instead, Chloe brewed up some herbal tea and initiated her favorite tantric meditation rite involving aromatherapy and some really nasty body oils. She said only by getting in touch with our “inner child” can we appreciate that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and only through prayer and meditation can we rebalance the forces that are so out of whack that Gaia has punished us with global warming, forest fires, and earthquakes. Not to mention angering Pele-`ai-honua , the volcano god.

And you wonder why I’m so depressed today?

I am Ajai Raj, and I am a jackass.

This has to be considered one of the most riotously ridiculous, self-aggrandizing, solipsistic, and sophomoric examples of liberal buffoonery in history. The young man who today is the talk of the internet for being arrested at an Ann Coulter event after saying “How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f**k his wife up the ass?” left a love note for all his moonbat fans at Daily Kos in which he proves that perhaps NOW has been correct about abortion all along; some pregnancies, including the one that resulted in Mr. Raj vomiting forth into this world, should be terminated to save society the trouble of caring for the mentally deficient.

The open letter to Kos readers reveals a pathology so deep as to be beyond description…so of course, I’ll try.

In the screed, Mr. Raj preens, he prances, he’s so self congratulatory and proud that one gets the distinct impression that, if he was able, he’d lick his own balls, so worked up and full of self-satisfied vainglory as he is:

From the beginning I was yelling obscenities along with my friends, roaring at Ms. Coulter’s right-wing bullshit festival the way no one else had the balls to. Mr. Sampath writes in his article that (and this is my take) the protesters were told to be good all along. They were told to sit in the back and hold their signs and leave quietly. No wonder hippies get such a bad rap nowadays; protesters today might as well be ornaments on the Rightmobile. When I want someone to know I’m pissed off, I’m going to throw down and give them a good shit-ruining. I wanted to show Ms. Coulter that people are down if she wants to hold a circle-jerk, but we’re not gonna do it her way. Not me, at least.

So Mr. Raj “threw down” and by “yelling obscenities” and “roaring.” Here is someone who’s so certain of his rightness, his correctness, his goodness that allowing someone to speak who he vehemently disagrees with should be…what, Mr. Raj. Illegal? If not illegal, they should just be prevented from speaking, is that it?

God, the Sandanistas would have loved this guy! For that matter, any quasi-totalitarian regime given the stamp of approval by the likes of Jimmy Carter over the last decade or so could really use the Raj’s on the moonbat left. For you see, this guy and his ilk have a secret yearning for authoritarianism. They’re brown shirt mentality doesn’t require specific instructions from party headquarters. They know exactly what to do. They break up opposition rallies. They destroy opposition printing presses. They beat up, shout down, trip up, and kick in the groin anyone that disagrees with them.

Christian idiotarians pray for their enemies. These guys are a little more demonstrative:

So yes, the Q&A session came around, and it was pathetic. Her slack-jawed fans got up and licked her face so she could pat them on the head- one schmuck offered to be her bodyguard, and she smiled, doubtlessly making a mental note that she wouldn’t touch his nether regions if she were King Midas; liberal protestors posed well-intentioned but woefully timid questions and got shot down in a hail of ignorant shitfire from the She-Dragon. Standing in line awaiting my turn, I watched her send a moderate Republican, who had questioned the sheer incendiary magnitude of her rhetoric, walk away in tears when she tore him apart for daring to question her.

So yes, I saw my “opportunity to say something lewd and offensive.” And I took it.

She had just said something about gay marriage, the typical rightwing bullshit spiel that is still convincing people that the Bible is really the Constitution. Knowing that taking the time to say something insightful, specific, or even slightly critical would get me a lame comeback and a ticket back to my seat, I realized that the only way to win this battle was to fight fire with fire. Or bullshit with bullshit.

Whereupon Mr. Moonbat said his dirty word. Judging by his letter, he should have been excused on the grounds that his vocabulary was inadequate to the task of expressing his vaporous thoughts. Please notice however, the famous moonbat ploy that forgives all sins, covers all blemishes, and wipes clean the slate as Mr. Raj heroically stands on the battlements and waves a bloody shirt while “fighting fire with fire” (OOH! The drama) or “bullsh*t with bullsh*t.” (OOOH! The naughtiness.)

I’ve said it many times; moonbats act like this because they have the emotional maturity of an 11 year old girl. In Mr. Raj’s case, I take that back in order not to insult 11 year old innocents.

Did I give a shit? No. If I had a message, it’s that the whole thing was a joke- hell, our whole political scene today is a fucking joke. Everyone’s out to either pat themselves on the back for being right or whine about how they’re being wronged without ever lifting a finger to fight for it.

So rather than dignify anyone else, I “made masturbatory gestures” as I exited. Again, bingo! I danced a jig and set my hand a-jerkin’ at crotch-level, sneering for the crowd and letting them know I was ready to roll. I yelled to my friends that we were gonna split and made for the door.

What a delicate flower. It takes a special kind of lickspittle to be proud of “sneering” at people. But then, I’m sure he never sneered at anyone. I’ll bet you five to your one that this guy doesn’t even know what a “sneer” is. But like the rest of his remarkably incoherent and vapid testimony, his target is the heart of moonbats who, in their non sexual fantasies, see themselves giving the finger to the rest of the world and everyone cheering them for it.

Then again…maybe that is their sexual fantasy…

If so, then getting arrested obviously made this guy positively orgasmic:

Two cops approached me. I figured they were going to tell me I had to leave, so I said “You can’t fire me, because I quit!”

“You’re under arrest.”

It was my turn to be shocked. I tried to ask them what for; saying “f**k her in the ass”" at a college isn’t a crime, last time I checked. They apparently mistook my inquiries for aggression, and grabbed me roughly and slammed me into the door. Within seconds the backmost two or three rows was surging forward, following the scene as the cops dragged me out the door. They yelled and chanted; my friends were more outraged than I’d ever seen any of them before. As they pushed me into the car, I heard my good friend Jeffrey Stockwell scream, “THIS ISN’T A JUSTICE SYSTEM! YOU CALL THIS PROTECTING AND SERVING?!” The crowd took up a chant at the UTPD officers: “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

Shame is f**king right. When I asked the cops why they thought I needed cuffing, they told me that they didn’t even see anything that happened, they were just doing as told.

Leaving aside the ignorance of one who doesn’t know that everyone who’s arrested for any reason gets cuffed, the scene the moonbat describes is right out of the Yippie playbook from the 1968 Democratic Convention complete with the crowd chanting “The whole world is watching…The whole world is watching.” Nothing makes a moonbat feel better than to relive the glory days of movement politics when police were the enemy and one was considered heroic to resist the forces of fascism.

It really does take a special kind of nitwit to be a moonbat. And judging from this discourse by Mr. Raj, he’s going to need nitwit lessons to catch up.

UPDATE

I’m glad to see that Mr. Raj’s revealing admission that he’s related to a horses rump made Wizbang’s “Quote of the Day.”

May I nominate Raj’s revelation for ‘Moonbat quote of the month?”

Ann Coulter before her date with Superhawk

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter, known for her sharp tongue and acerbic wit, was arrested today and charged with misdemeanor assault when she allegedly used a bar of soap to wash out the mouth of one of her questioners.

“My mother used to do it when we were kids and used a nasty word and I just figured if it was good enough for my brothers and I it was good enough for a liberal potty mouth.” the gorgeous blond rightwinger said.

The “victim,” Dick Less, was accosted by Coulter immediately after asking a question laced with obscenities at her lecture in Arlington Heights. Reportedly, Coulter approached Mr. Dick Less and, after getting him in what’s known as a “Boston Crab Grapevine Leg Lock,” she allegedly grabbed his hair with one hand and with the other, withdrew a bar of Dial “Tropical Escape” soap and proceeded to thoroughly cleanse the oral orifice of Mr. Dick Less.

After the initial assault, Coulter turned and, according to witnesses, gave Mr. Dick Less a spinning heel kick followed quickly by a cross face chicken wing.

“I don’t know what the moonbat is complaining about.” Coulter said of Dick Less. “After all, I used the tastiest bar of soap I could find. ‘Tropical Escape’ has a nice, fresh, pineapple smell and I hear kids love it.” she added.

Coulter immediately went back to the podium and resumed her lecture to a standing ovation from the crowd.

There were no further disruptions.

Police were uncertain whether to charge Coulter or give her a medal. In the end, they settled on the misdemeanor charge in exchange for autographed copies of Coulter’s book “How to Talk to a Liberal.”

UPDATE

Since the only readers of this post I’ve gotten so far have been of the moonbattis undelici variety, how can I go wrong if I link to My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for a little balance?

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

With the radioactive mullahs digging in their heels by refusing to abandon their uranium enrichment program - a program that could yield enough fissionable material to make 3-5 nuclear weapons in a matter of months - the likelihood of conflict with Israel and by extension the United States grows daily.

At bottom, the reason is simple, as simple as anything can get in international relations. The Iranian theocracy has pledged itself to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the planet. They see the Jewish state as an abomination before God. This isn’t bombast. It isn’t “rhetoric for domestic consumption” as some in the west would have you believe. For the Iranian theocrats, the goal of destroying Israel is its raison d’etre , its reason for being. They also see Israel as a military threat. And when you combine the real-world strategic calculation of threat with a theological justification for war, you have an extraordinarily explosive and dangerous mixture.

Their view of the United States seems to have come full circle since the mullahs seized power in 1980 from less radical, more nationalistic elements of the revolution. At that time, they viewed us as “The Great Satan” who manipulated Israel as a client state to do our bidding in the middle east. Now that view has changed in that they now see Israel controlling American politics for their own ends. Either way, an Iranian nuclear weapons program threatens Israel with an immediacy that the Jewish state cannot ignore.

WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

The radioactive mullahs who will make the decision for war or peace are not pragmatists or reformers. They are control freaks. From the “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei who heads up the shadowy group of clerics that dictate policy and have virtually unlimited veto power over the legislative and executive branches of government to the equally clandestine network of intelligence and security people that include bully boys from Hezballah and the enforcers who make up the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian government seeks to coerce its citizens through intimidation and outright terror. Woe betide the luckless Iranian who gets caught in this nexus of brutality.

It’s impossible to estimate the number of regime opponents who’ve been executed in the last 25 years. Most human rights groups put the number at “tens of thousands.” In addition to the executions and outright murders committed by Revolutionary Guards, additional thousands have been assassinated abroad for speaking out against the regime. Certainly the number is approaching 100,000. Iranian bloggers have recently reported the cold blooded murder of the leaders of student protests against the government which means that far from reforming, the bloodthirsty security services will act quickly and ruthlessly to put down any opposition to the cleric’s rule.

Here are some of the key players we’ll be hearing a lot of in the coming months as the showdown with Iran approaches its climax:

Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei

Supreme Leader and Chief of State, Khamenei was appointed for life in 1989 to head up the small group of clerics known as the “Assembly of Experts” who control Iran. Born in 1939, Khamenei was a close associate of the patron saint of the Revolution Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1977, he helped found the Islamic Republic Party which is the major political party that now heads up the coalition of ruling parties that have governed Iran since the revolution. In 1980 as the Iranian students held our diplomats hostage, Khomeini gave Khamenei the position of leader of Friday Congregational Prayers in Tehran. Using this influential position, he rallied the students every week to go into the streets and protest against “The Great Satan.” Perhaps more than any other cleric, Khamenei was responsible for keeping the spirit of anti-Americanism among the students at a fever pitch.

In 1981 he gave a speech denouncing President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who after being summarily dismissed was then executed. From 1981 to 1989, he was President of Iran, garnering 95% of the vote in both his elections and heading up various security committees including being named Commander of the Revolutionary Guards.

Pretty easy to win when voting for your opponent would get you arrested.

Mohammad Khatami

When Khatami was elected President in 1997 with 70% of the vote, high hopes for reforming the theocracy were expressed by both western analysts and Iranian democracy advocates. Alas, such was not the case. Khatami has proven to be a straw man for the clerics. His “reformist” agenda has been stymied at every turn by the mullahs with most of his supporters who dared take his reformist ideas seriously either dead or in jail.

Born in 1943, his father was a good friend of Ayatollah Khomeini. Holding a minor position in the cabinet of his predecessor Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khatami ran a western style Presidential campaign, coming off as a man of the people and a reasonable theocrat. But despite some minor press reforms (since rolled back as the mullahs have cracked down on free speech in the last year) and the election of a pro-reform legislature, Khatami has failed to make a dent in the power wielded by the clerics behind Supreme Leader Khamenei. This is because he has no control over appointments to either the judiciary or the security services. In short, Khatami has a very short leash and has become very adept at not angering the mullahs. His term is up in August which could be right around the time the crisis between Iran and the US/Israel comes to a head.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Elections for President are scheduled for June 17, 2005 at which time it’s believed that Rafsanjani, who already served as President from 1989 to 1997, may once again hold that office. Elected with 95% of the vote (that same brave 5% keeps voting against these guys), Rafsanjani is an enigma.

A free market capitalist who sought to revive Iran’s ruined economy during his term in office, he was widely credited at the time with reopening Iran to investment, especially from Russia and Western Europe. A conservative, it appears that this time, he’ll be running on both a reformist and conservative ticket. Here’s how Forbes described him in an article from 2003:

Ironically, the man most adept at manipulating this hidden power structure is one of Iran’s best-known characters–Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been named an ayatollah, or religious leader. He was the speaker of parliament and Khomeini’s right-hand man in the 1980s, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and is now chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, which resolves disputes between the clerical establishment and parliament. Rafsanjani has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years.

He played it smart, aligning himself in the 1960s with factions led by Ayatollah Khomeini, then becoming the go-to guy after the revolution. A hard-liner ideologically, Rafsanjani nonetheless has a pragmatic streak. He convinced Khomeini to end the Iran-Iraq war and broke Iran’s international isolation by establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the 1990s he restarted Iran’s nuclear program. He is also the father of Iran’s “privatization” program. During his presidency the stock market was revived, some government companies were sold to insiders, foreign trade was liberalized and the oil sector was opened up to private companies. Most of the good properties and contracts, say dissident members of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, ended up in the hands of mullahs, their associates and, not least, Rafsanjani’s own family, who rose from modest origins as small-scale pistachio farmers.

Is Rafsanjani enough of a pragmatist to avoid the coming conflict? That depends on how well he can manipulate events in Iran. If he has the confidence of the mullahs (he’s not their first choice at this point) he may be able to convince them that the isolation that Iran will experience if it continues its enriched urnanium program will be ruinous to the economy and set the Revolution back. It would help if, when we go to the United Nations and ask for sanctions (which we will surely do before any military action), that our ostensible allies in Europe and around the world support us in the effort. Unfortunately, at this point it looks as if Russia would veto any sanctions resolution as would the French.

Rafsanjani, who began the Iranian nuclear program in 1990 when he was President, will be reluctant to abandon bomb making unless he thinks the survival of the regime is at stake. Since the only credible threat to the regime comes from the United States military, its up to us to make it clear to Rafsanjani that a nuclear weapon in the hands of radical islamists is unacceptable. Only then will he and the radioactive mullahs consider withdrawing from the brink of catastrophe which would be the certain outcome of any military action taken by the US or Israel against Iran.

Cross Posted at Cao’s Blog and Blogger News Network

The Iranians appear to be keen on forcing a showdown with both Israel and the United States over its nuclear program:

In Tehran and here on the world stage, an emphatic Iran said Tuesday it will press on with its uranium-enrichment technology, a program that has drawn Washington’s fire and ratcheted up global nuclear tensions.

On the second day of a nonproliferation conference, Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his country is “determined to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including enrichment, exclusively for peaceful purposes.”

In Iran’s capital, a government spokesman said nuclear activities suspended during talks with European negotiators would be resumed, but not enrichment itself - the processing of uranium gas through centrifuges to produce either fuel for nuclear power or the stuff of atom bombs.

Since both Israel and the United States will do whatever it takes to keep the radioactive mullahs from acquiring their own nuclear weapon, it seems clear that Tehran is ready to play out whatever strategy they’ve concocted to deal with the eventuality of an attack by either or both countries.

Is the Iranian leadership so insulated, so out of touch that they fail to realize the danger of an attack, especially by Israel? Not likely. One possibility is that they’re banking on any military action being unable to take out the guts of their nuclear infrastructure - a pretty good bet since they’ve been burying their facilities underground for the last five or more years. This means for any attack to be successful, there must be a follow-up ground assault to destroy any facilities that remain.

Israel has excellent special forces units that theoretically could be used in a series of commando raids to finish the job started by IDF bombers. The problem is that the Iranians have turned these facilities into almost impregnable fortresses so that any operations carried out against them would not only incur huge casualties but would probably fail.

The only military options then that would have a chance of being 100% successful would seem to be a bombing operation coupled with some kind of invasion. Given that the US is the only country that could carry out a large scale assault of this nature and that any military action of this kind would inflame passions in the middle east against us, the radioactive mullahs may think they’ve checkmated both the United States and Israel and forestalled any meaningful action against them.

They may be right. While carrying out a bombing raid using their brand new American made GBU-28 “Bunker Busting” bombs, the IDF would be unable to destroy Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure as they did when they attacked Saddam’s Osirak Nuclear complex in 1981. This would put the onus on the United States to follow up with ground assault that could lead to an oil embargo, condemnation by NATO, and even the prospect of UN sanctions. While we could veto any sanctions in the Security Council, there’s a very real possibility that many countries would abide by them anyway. In short, we’d find ourselves more isolated internationally than we’ve ever been in our history.

And yet, both the US and Israel have decided that it would be unacceptable for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. What can be done?

Whatever is going to be done must be done soon. Perhaps some kind of blockade by US warships would bring Iran to its senses. While militarily a dead end, a blockade would serve as a wake up call to Europe that we’re absolutely dead serious about Iranian nukes. And it would be preferable to a bombing attack and/or invasion. But it wouldn’t do a thing about ridding the world of the Iranian nuclear threat. And the effect on politics in the middle east would probably be the same as an invasion.

The radioactive mullahs have thought this through carefully. The end game is in sight. It’s now up to the US and Israel to play their hands in this extremely dangerous and volatile situation.

It had to happen sooner or later. A major TV network is planning to produce a mini-series with the events surrounding September 11, 2001 as the backdrop.

Some may argue that it’s too soon, that to give 9/11 the Hollywood touch is cruel and unfeeling to the family members who lost loved ones both in the air and on the ground that horrible day.

These reasons haven’t stopped TV moguls in the past. The drama about Lacy Peterson’s murder was aired less than two years after the poor woman’s family went through a trauma no family should have to go through; the loss of a daughter, murdered at the hands of a formerly beloved son-in-law. And who could forget the “Long Island Lolita” Amy Fischer who had three made for TV movies in the can before poor little teenage Amy was sent to the pen for trying to murder her older lover’s wife.

One can imagine Mrs. Buttafucco’s distress at having to live that nightmare over and over again.

In this case, there should be a recognition that 9/11 is different. As much as we feel for the individuals and family members who lost loved ones, September 11, 2001 is a day that belongs to all of us. It was the single most transformational day in American history. Pearl Harbor, for all of its devastating surprise and outrage, was nonetheless carried out at a time when the rest of the world was already at war. The shock was tempered by the foreknowledge that sooner or later, we were going to be involved. FDR’s institution of the first peacetime draft in American history and other signposts like the passage of the Lend-Lease Act that placed the US firmly on the side of Great Britain and Russia against Hitler showed that America, however reluctantly, was moving to intervene.

And the day JFK was shot generated its own degree of shock and horror but was hardly as immediately transforming as that horrible September day. An argument can be made that the triple shocks of assassination/Viet Nam/Watergate demonstrated over a period of a decade or more that America would never be the same. Some say we lost” innocence” as a result of those events. Perhaps its more accurate to say we had our eyes opened to the perfidy and faithlessness of the people we elect to represent us.

But on September 11, 2001 the United States and the world were at peace - or what used to pass for peace in the post cold war pre 9/11 reality. We had troops in the Balkans trying to keep an uneasy peace. We were in a low level combat situation in Iraq trying to keep Saddam Hussein in his box. And there were the usual tribal conflicts, coup d’ etats, genocidal rampages, and border disputes that somehow never quite made it through the screen erected by the guardians of information in the mainstream media so as to penetrate our consciousness and cause us to lose any sleep.

This self-generated myopia disappeared in the clouds of fire and smoke that rose from the ruins of the twin towers. For some, September 11 was a call to arms, a sudden and transmogrifying episode that not only showed how vulnerable we were to our enemies, but that these same implacable foes were hell bent on killing all of us in a very real and very literal sense.

For others, 9/11 remains a tragedy but not much else. They resent measures we’ve taken to protect ourselves be it passage of internal security proposals or the implementation of new military strategies like pre-emptive war.

At bottom, the difference in these two views of the meaning of September 11 is what drives most our politics today. In that respect, there has never been a day before or since in American history that has had such a profound effect on either our domestic political alignments or our foreign policy. America is divided between 9/10 and 9/12 advocates.

The question for ABC is from what perspective will the miniseries approach the events surrounding that day? From the looks of this report on the casting calls, it could go either way at this point:

Here it comes, the miniseries no one wanted to see.

Nevertheless, ABC seems to be readying a major and secret “fictionalized” multi-parter about the history of terrorism, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the disasters of Sept. 11, 2001.

From the looks of it, the story is going to be about how stupid the government was: If only they’d listened to one man, all would have been right!

The title offered on call sheets for actors is “The Untitled ABC History Project.”

Last week, the call went out for dozens of Arab actors. Today, ABC showed a little more of its effort by putting out requests for 16 characters.

The main one? Former FBI agent John O’Neill, who seems to be the lead figure in this ‘history.’

The use of O’Neill as a central character may give away more about the thrust of the story than ABC may have wished. For almost a decade, Agent O’Neill, who was something of a legend in the counter terrorism culture of our national security apparatus, tracked many of the 9/11 hijackers. The excellent Frontline documentary about his exploits and colorful personality gave tantalizing clues to just how close O’Neill came to unmasking al Queda and preventing the attacks on 9/11.

The problem from ABC’s perspective is how to show that the Clinton administration and especially FBI Director Louis Freeh tried to thwart O’Neil at almost every turn without making it seem as if the worst attack on American soil in history could have been prevented. Part of the problem was O’Neill’s personality. The way Frontline portrayed him, O’Neill was something of a roue who liked fast women, fast cars, and fast times. Part beefy Irish cop, part dandy, O’Neill was a bulldog when he got a hold of a case. His relentless pursuit of al Quaeda led him to accidentally stumble upon elements of Mohamed Atta’s 9/11 cell in the Philippines and Indonesia. Realizing that something was being planned, O’Neill haunted the locations of terrorist attacks throughout the 1990’s; in Africa at the site of our embassy bombings, in Saudi Arabia at the Khobar Towers bombing, and finally in Yemen where the USS Cole was struck by suicide bombers and where O’Neill could have just about cracked the 9/11 conspiracy wide open.

The conspiracy to bomb the USS Cole had the involvement of at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. But due to bureaucratic infighting between the FBI and the State Department, the connection was missed. Shortly after being rebuffed in continuing the investigation in Yemen and marginalized by Director Freeh back home, O’Neill resigned from the FBI.

And in one of the supreme and tragic ironies of 9/11, O’Neill took a job as Chief of Security at the World Trade Center. He started his new job in late August, 2001 and died a few days later in the attack.

Clearly the dramatic potential is there for a blockbuster series. The real problem appears to be in the creative staff hired to make the project:

Historians should have a field day with this version of the decade-long terrorist plot. But why not? Screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh got his start on another soap opera, “Falcon Crest.” He also wrote the upcoming miniseries “Into the West” and was cited for “The Day Reagan Was Shot.” Marc Platt is the producer, and David L. Cunningham — who helmed the recent miniseries revival of “Little House on the Prairie” and several B-movies — will direct.

“The Day Reagan was Shot” was an excreable effort that portrays President Reagan’s cabinet as a bunch of hapless buffoons with Richard Dreyfuss’s portrayal of Secretary of State Al Haig as some sort of megalomaniac intent on overthrowing the government a low point in “docu-drama” film making. The fact that this hack has been hired to write the script for a mini-series on 9/11 does not bode well either for history or entertainment for that matter.

Regardless of who writes or directs, the fact that such a series is even being contemplated is probably a good thing. Even the upcoming release of “The Great New Wonderful” which will track the lives of New Yorkers who lived through that awful day (and in which the star Maggie Gyllenhaal has said “America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way” for 9/11) will be a valuable contribution to our national dialog on the subject.

And given the impact of that day, perhaps its time to put the events of 9/11 into the pantheon of American myth as only Hollywood can do. Like movies about World War II that followed closely on the heels of the end of that conflict - “From Here to Eternity” comes to mind - sometimes a close perspective to a particular event can crystallize emotions and sharpen the senses about an incident that will haunt those of us who lived it until the day we die.

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network and Cao’s Blog

The revelation that a Chinese national has been helping Marwan with the stolen nuclear weapon should not have come as much of a surprise. There’s some evidence that the notorious Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan’s black market network of nuclear materials and expertise received significant contributions from the People’s Republic of China. In fact, both the Pakistani and North Korean bomb may be brought to us courtesy of Communist China.

Even though Jack dismissed the idea of Chinese government involvement with Marwan, in real life we may not be so lucky. The fact is, China has been gradually shifting its military strategy over the last decade to include “Unconventional Warfare” in its strategic calculations. This is in keeping with the age old Chinese strategy based on the ancient game of “Go” where stones are moved around a board presenting almost infinite permutations and options. Their assistance with the nascent nuclear programs of Pakistan and North Korea (as well as probably Iran and Libya) is part of their overall strategy of defense. As they see it, they cannot compete with the US technologically in the military sphere and won’t be able to for at least another 10 years (some analysts think 20 years is more accurate). Hence, by arming our potential enemies with nukes, they keep us too busy to bother much with them.

Meanwhile, they’re beginning to stalk Taiwan like a hungry cat. While a Communist Chinese invasion of the tiny island isn’t imminent, all signs point to Beijing wishing to solve its “Taiwan problem” sooner rather than later.

One more thing to chew on; the Chinese are the most patient people on the planet. With a civilization that goes back nearly 4000 years, they tend to take a really long view of things - much more so than we do in the West. With that in mind, here’s a quote from perhaps the most famous military strategist in history, Sun Tzu:

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

SUMMARY

President Jellyfish nearly swoons in relief when President Palmer shows up to help him. The scene is stomach churning. I hope that’s the last we see of this spineless, miserable excuse for a President.

In contrast to Logan’s cowardice, Chloe proves she’s got some real geek cohones when she hacks Ardakani’s hard drive in the field immediately after gunning down an assassin. The information leads to a Chinese national, one Lee Jong. A former Chinese nuke scientist, Jack reassures us that he’s not working with the Chinese government (hope so…as we’ll see shortly, we already have enough trouble with the Chicoms). Lee has taken refuge in the Chinese Consulate

As predicted, Audrey wants to go with Paul back east for treatment on his spine and set up house with him. Poor Jack doesn’t know yet but probably suspects as much. When he comes into the CTU medical ward to thank Paul for saving his life, he sees how close Audrey and Paul are. Given Audrey’s attitude toward Jack over the last few hours, he can hardly be surprised.

Back in the Presidential bunker, the crisis machinery of government is humming along nicely as Palmer takes charge. In a conversation with the Chinese Consul Mr. Khu, he asks very politely if they can please take Mr. Lee into custody so that we can torture the little bugger and find out where the hell Marwan’s nuke is before our east coast is toast.

Understandably, Mr. Khu is reluctant to give up a Chinese national and place him at the mercy of these barbarians from such a young country as the United States. He must get permission from the Premier. Since the formal greetings to the Premier alone will take 1/2 an hour, it’s doubtful Mr. Khu will get back to us in time. Sure enough, when Bill informs Palmer that all signs point to the nuke being used before sunrise on the east coast - less than two hours away - Palmer needs to make other arrangements.

Those other arrangements include Jack, of course. Not content with breaking most of the laws on the books in the United States to get to Marwan before its too late, Jack now must violate the UN Charter, half a dozen formal and informal agreements with China, and probably the Law of the Sea Treaty to get Lee out of the Consulate and into the waiting hands of Richard at CTU and his little black bag of magic truth potions. But of course, Jack has got to do the job without involving the government. If any of his CTU force is caught or killed, the Secretary (and the President) will disavow any knowledge of his actions. All that was missing from Palmer was “Good luck, Mr. Bauer.”

With Tony’s off the books help with satellite coverage from CTU, Jack enters the Consulate and makes his way toward the room where Lee is waiting. With the skills of a catburglar, Jack reaches the room and with two punches in two seconds knocks out both Lee and his babysitter. Making his way out is a lot more difficult than trying to break in as the entire Consulate is roused into action and guards start shooting wildly, missing Jack but hitting both Lee and Mr. Khu. In addition, the CTU driver is unmasked briefly, allowing a guard to see his face. He also gets a cut on the face that bleeds.

Can you say “Positive ID with conclusive DNA match?”

When the Assistant Consul calls to complain about the raid, Palmer is shocked, shocked I tell you that such a thing could happen. The implications involving the death of the Chinese Consul are serious indeed which is why Palmer offers to help:

Palmer: Your government will have my complete cooperation.

Asst. Consul: Thank you Mr. President. I’m sure you will be hearing from us again…very soon.

Said quite ominously with a dash of oriental inscrutability. I don’t think we’ve heard the last from the Chinese, have you?

And back at CTU Chloe gets a little geek support from fat geek Edgar. All I can say about this exchange between the two is “typical Chloe:

Chloe: Edgar, I appreciate your concern. I really do. It’s just that when I shot that guy I thought I’d go all fetal position. But the truth is, I didn’t feel anything at al. I hope I’m not some kind of psychopath.

FGE: Well, he was trying to kill you…

Chloe: Yeah, but still…

FGE: Maybe it’s a delayed reaction kind of thing. Maybe you’ll freak out about it in a couple of days.

Chloe: I hope so.

We hope so too, darlin’.

Meanwhile, Bill has a hissy fit when he finds out Jack went into the Consulate without his knowledge and takes it out on poor Tony who was only trying help Jack. Bill lets the bureaucrat get the better of him on this issue. The whole point was to keep people out of the loop which he would have realized if he wasn’t so concerned about his “turf” being violated. Tony suspects ulterior motives for Bill’s blowup relating to his relationship with Michelle and how she and Tony have been getting friendlier and friendlier as the hours go by.

Part of that friendliness is the result of a phone call from Trailer Trash Jen, Tony’s live-in girlfriend who’s been supporting him since he got out of jail and was wondering where the heck he was. After Michelle gets almost weepy at the prospect of her beloved Tony in the arms of another woman, Tony assures Michelle that he doesn’t love Jen (Jeez! Who could?) which seems to settle her down some.

The two of them are moving for some kind of reconciliation…probably just as the bomb goes off.

The final scene has more drama in it than 3 soap operas, two episodes of Law and Order, and the movie Titanic all rolled into one. Just as she was getting flight information for their trip back east, Audrey watches helplessly as Paul relapses and is rushed into emergency surgery. Meanwhile, after obtaining immunity for Mr. Lee from the President, Jack is on the way to the same emergency surgery unit at CTU with the critically wounded scientist. Something’s got to give and, unfortunately for Paul, national security trumps all.

The Dr. about ready to operate on Paul is reluctant to leave his patient knowing he will die - that is, until Jack uses his persuasive powers (and his gun) to convince the Doctor otherwise. As the doc examines Mr. Lee, Paul goes into defib and Jack and Curtis try to revive him. The doc can do nothing. Curtis can do nothing. Jack can do nothing.

Paul is dead. An angry and upset Audrey makes it pretty clear that Jack is going to have to make other sleeping arrangements from here on out.

And with a look that can only be described as that of a little lost boy, Jack tries to push the entire episode out of his mind so that he can do his job and save us all.

BODY COUNT

Mr. Khu succumbs to friendly fire. Paul doesn’t have to worry anymore about being paralyzed.

Jack: 40

Show: 223

Chloe: 1

SPECULATION

Look for Secretary of Defense Heller to make an appearance next week to comfort his daughter and give Jack what for about the Chinese operation. Jack may be looking for another job too.

I’m leaning toward the idea that Tony will be killed before the final episode. Just a feeling but I think after the coming reconciliation with Michelle, his demise will come swiftly…probably saving Jack’s life.

We’re starting a new tradition here at the House.

Monday nights will be “Open House.” Anyone can post a trackback here on any subject just as long as your post includes a link to the House .

Might as well put my in line trackback function to good use! Have at it!