WEEK OF APRIL 5, 2009

A Minimal Stimulus for Ward Churchill 

Like the bad penny that keeps coming back, wannabe Indian, college professor, civil activist, and terrorist Ward Churchill was back in Colorado news last week, competing with the Denver Broncos cum Chicago Bears quarterback crybaby Jay Cutler for front page, above the fold headlines. Even The Anointed One, meeting in London with the leaders of the G-20 countries, had to take third billing. 

After having to endure four weeks of testimony, jurors in the trial to reinstate the Big Chief’s job as Professor at the University of Colorado pulled a big surprise by first agreeing with his claim that he was wrongfully terminated from his job, then over-generously awarding him damages in the total amount of $1.00 for his efforts. Of course, Churchill and his attorney David Lane claimed that it was a huge victory because they were “never in it for the money.”  
And I'm Peter Pan.

The questions have not yet been fully resolved, however. Unanswered is the issue of whether CU will be forced to reinstate Churchill’s position and tenure, or to pay him an amount of money in lieu of his position, as well as damages for lost salary after he was fired by the university in 2007. Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves will decide at a separate hearing within 30 days what the outcome will be. Informed speculation ranges from confidence that Churchill will once again be roaming the Boulder campus, while others expect to see a large financial settlement that will ensure that the University will be forever free of his ethnic vitriol and reckless abandonment of standard academic writing practices. Either way, the school loses, but it would not be an unfamiliar situation considering all of its scandals over the last ten years. 

Churchill gained nationwide notoriety in early 2005 when his essay, "Some People Push Back, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," written four years earlier, was made known to the public. In it, Churchill referred to the World Trade Center victims of the 9/11 attacks as “Little Eichmann’s”, equating them to the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. He based his assessment on his perceived mistreatment of many of the world’s ethnic groups by America, and implied that the WTC workers were cogs in the machine that promulgated that mistreatment. Therefore, according to Churchill, it was only logical that someone would strike back at America at one of its major financial hubs and symbols. In effect, the 9/11 victims deserved their fate, according to Churchill. 

This, of course, angered many Americans who called for his prompt dismissal and an apology to the families of all who died on 9/11. At the time, cooler heads prevailed and held that, as repugnant as Churchill’s statements were, the right to free speech in America allowed him to say these things. In an article posted on this website in February 2005, entitled Let the Toady Speak, I wrote: 

Our nation was founded on the principle of political discourse, however repugnant that some of the discourse may be.  I share his concern that many of the families of 9/11 victims would be greatly offended by what this narcissist has to say, but as has been said many times in The DRUM and CANNON, the potential to give offense to someone is not sufficient reason to deny anyone the First Amendment right to speak, as “political correctness” attempts to do.  Mr. Rosen’s [Denver talk show host Mike Rosen] assertion that being a public employee places special limitations on a person’s right of free speech is a good argument, especially in light of the fact that the Administration at CU last year suspended the school’s football coach for stating that a girl trying out for the school’s varsity football team’s punter couldn’t kick the ball.  Yet I am confident, despite the obvious double standard at CU, that the applied principles of free speech in a university atmosphere is more likely to strengthen those principles in the minds of students, rather than convert them to a bunch of Marxist toadies.  

While Churchill was given a pass on his ridiculous statements, the firestorm of anger that they created resulted in an anti-Churchill media blitz, especially on Denver talk radio, that eventually the university began looking into some of his academic work, especially in the area of his writing, that eventually led to the discovery of plagiarism and outright falsification of historical fact. Inasmuch as this sloppy writing had been going on long before the “little Eichmanns” brouhaha and the university had never done anything about it made the case for firing him almost indefensible. As Churchill’s attorney David Lane successfully argued in the trial, the university built its case for dismissal only as a means of revenge for Churchill’s comments. 

As I have pointed out in articles here written between 2005 and Churchill’s firing in 2007, the university had been extremely negligent in hiring this fraud in the first place. In a panicky search for a new professor and eventual Chairman of its Ethnics Studies Department, it failed to verify or even investigate his false claims of Native American lineage, and overlooked the fact that he did not have a valid Ph.D., a usual requirement for hiring. They further gave him accelerated tenure and promoted him to Department Head in far less time than is normally the case.  

Perhaps the school’s Defense Attorney Patrick O'Rourke had the deck stacked against him before the trial began, thanks to the school’s own incompetence. Some post-trial analyses, however, roundly scored O’Rourke for mistakes made during the trial, such as the comments of blogger and Ward Churchill expert PirateBallerina, who wrote,

Of equal interest if the $1 award given to Churchill. As numerous media sources reported, the low amount was the result of jury disagreement. All but one juror wanted a far more generous award, and the lone holdout wanted to award nothing. After hours of intense arguments, a compromise was reached and the final amount was agreed upon. Surprisingly, it seems that both sides were satisfied with the outcome. If it were to end here, the entire episode could be placed into a back corner of the archives of history to be soon forgotten. Instead, we must wait 30 days to learn the final outcome, and there is no guarantee that it will be final.

RETURN TO ARCHIVES PAGE                           RETURN TO HOME PAGE

Don’t ask questions, the answers to which you do not want to hear… 

One of my regular e-mail friends today sent me a link to an MSNBC poll question on that networks website that allowed the reader to assign a grade to President Obama’s during his first 10 weeks in office. Naturally, I could not resist the temptation to move quickly to the “F” choice, and marked it accordingly. As one would expect, immediately after submitting my vote, the overall poll results appeared and it seems like many other Americans shared my view, as the “F” grade was running about 7 percentage points higher than “A” (41% to 34%), with slightly over 1.5 million votes cast.  55% of the votes fell into the “D” and “F” categories, with the remaining 46% spread between “A” and “C”. 

As a means of covering itself, the network added a disclaimer in small print that said the poll was “not scientific”. While this may be true, I would suggest that the results were somewhat more credible and meaningful than if the poll had been posted on the Hugh Hewitt website or at New Media Journal.us, since those are both conservative websites, and more likely to be visited by conservative readers. I, for one, never recall having visited the MSNBC website before, and I doubt that many other conservatives have either. 

After submitting my vote, I forwarded the link to other friends to give them the opportunity to vote as well. This evening I received a reply informing me that the poll had been closed. Apparently, the Chris Matthews-Keith Obermann Network did not like the results that they were getting. One can only wonder if they gave Matthews a cramp in his normally tingling leg.

RETURN TO ARCHIVES PAGE                           RETURN TO HOME PAGE

Just wondering… 

I wonder if the recent passage of the UN resolution by the organization’s Human Rights Council that provides "protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation, and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general" will finally stop the purveyors of verbal defecation like Bill Maher from taking cheap shots at Christianity.  

Which article is it in the U.S. Constitution that gives the President the right to fire the CEO of a private company? Is there one that states, “Because we won, we can do anything we want”? It might also explain why he finds it unnecessary to provide his birth certificate or college records. 

Why is it that no “moderate” members of the Taliban stepped forward to discuss the future with President Obama? 

Has there ever been a history written about the Carter administration? If so, could someone get a copy of it to the Obama administration to read? 

Why doesn’t the Governor of North Dakota have to call out the National Guard to prevent looting and other mayhem during the current flooding in Fargo and Bismarck, and why hasn’t FEMA stepped in? Why didn’t the President stop by before his trip to Europe? Why isn’t the media asking these questions? 

Why do Democrats always find it necessary to have an “exit strategy” for wars that we enter into? What is so hard to understand about “Just win the freakin’war!”? Why send our troops to war if we need to develop an elaborate plan to get them back home? Why bother sending them if our goal is not to win and to win overwhelmingly? 

Why do so many Americans still believe that the way to end poverty is to throw money at it? Can they not get a hint from the 40-year failure of the Great Society and War on Poverty? Do they foolishly believe that the politicians of today are any smarter than they were 40 years ago? The same questions could be asked about our public education system. If money were the answer, Washington D.C. and Chicago would have the best school systems in the world. 

Why are so many Americans unable to understand the basic economic fact that if you raise taxes on business owners, one of two things will occur? Either businesses will not expand, causing job shortages, or prices will rise accordingly, causing inflation. There are no other possible outcomes. It definitely cannot improve the economy either way. I am surprised that a top Harvard Law School graduate would not understand this. Or, perhaps he does….

An afterthought...

Why do so many people who consider themselves to be avid conservatives just sit around, talking and complaining about these issues, venting on radio talk shows,  but doing absolutely nothing to turn our country around? Why are they not writing letters to their representatives in Congress? Why are they not attending rallies such as the upcoming Tax Day Tea parties? Why are they not flooding local newspapers with letters to the editor? Why are they not supporting conservative candidates with their money and their time? Why are they not supporting conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation? Why do they not realize that change must begin with them? Why?

RETURN TO ARCHIVES PAGE                           RETURN TO HOME PAGE

A commitment for success in Afghanistan: or not?

President Obama’s new policy for defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a welcomed development in both of those countries, and has been well received here in the United States by both liberal and conservative pundits as well. The plan calls for the addition of 21,000 American troops as a starter, along with several hundred civilian workers whose jobs will be to help solidify central government control in Afghanistan, expand Afghanistan’s infrastructure, and convert that country’s agricultural production from its traditional poppy-growing to more beneficial crops such as wheat as a means of depriving the insurgency of one of its primary sources of income. The plan also calls for increased American cooperation and involvement in Pakistan’s heretofore ineffective attempts to curb insurgent activities in that country’s western provinces.   

An article posted on Friday’s Wall Street Journal Online by Yochi J. Dreazen reported,

 Call me skeptical. It is not a matter of whether this new plan is laudable; it is. The question is this: in a war that has been going on much longer than the War In Iraq and has much further to go, will the American people continue to be willing to support this effort, one that will take a minimum of two years to produce even the slightest tangible results, much less successful completion? More importantly, will the Obama Administration have the same strength and fortitude to follow through when public opinion heads south, as the Bush Administration had in Iraq? I am not confident that it will.

The article goes on to state that,

The weakness in this approach, as demonstrated repeatedly in the past, is that you cannot defeat an insurgency using a military strategy alone. We learned that in Vietnam, and we had to learn it again in Iraq. An insurgency only rarely if ever will engage its enemy in fixed battle. Instead, it relies on hit and run tactics, and, in the case of Islamic jihadists, terrorist tactics such as suicide bombings. There is no effective way for a basically conventional force to defeat this strategy relying on military tactics alone, unless it is willing to commit large numbers of troops that allows it to be everywhere all of the time. In this war, which straddles the border with Pakistan, that nation’s forces would be required to be a part of that commitment as well, something that the Pakistanis most likely would be unable or unwilling to do. 

As we have seen in Iraq and in those few other locations where counterinsurgency has been successful, it is only when the local population throughout the country can be convinced that the central government, along with strengthened provincial and local governments, are able to provide more security, stability, and prosperity than the insurgents can. In doing so, the government will deprive the insurgents of their base; they will be fish out of the water. Without local support, either voluntary or coerced, an insurgency cannot survive. General Petreaus and President Bush (eventually) understood this, and it brought the success we have seen in Iraq today. 

In many ways, Afghanistan provides a more daunting challenge for counterinsurgency than did Iraq. The single major difference is the country’s demographics. Although Afghanistan has 3.8 million more people than Iraq, its population is far more rural, with a population density only 77% of that in Iraq. It is also far more primitive. There is just one major highway there, compared to the far more sophisticated transportation system in Iraq. Infrastructure amenities such as electricity and water storage facilities in rural areas are rare. 

John Nagl, co-author of the Army and Marine Corps' "Counterinsurgency Field Manual", recently said, "The biggest difference is Afghanistan is a rural, rather than an urban, counterinsurgency campaign. The challenge of an urban insurgency is difficult. The challenge of a rural insurgency is, I think, even harder."

Whether Americans like it or not, or whether President Obama directly admits it or even recognizes it, U.S. tsuccess in Afghanistan will require much of the same “nation building” for which he and others have criticized President Bush. Thomas Johnson, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, said, "As Obama suggested, it's going to take much more than more troops to solve the problem.”  Additionally, it will take time. If the president thinks that the war will no longer be an issue for the 2012 election, he is very sadly mistaken—unless, of course, he does not intend to allow it to be. 

The situation in Pakistan, which the President’s plan has included in the overall strategy, is even worse. In several ways, Pakistan provides a scenario somewhat closer to that in Iraq in that the central government has firmer control over most of the country. The exception, however, are in the Northwestern Provinces and in Waziristan, both of which border Afghanistan and presently serve as relatively safe havens for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who cross back and forth at will to and from Afghanistan. The overall weakness of Pakistan’s government has seriously limited its ability to wrest control of the outlying provinces from the insurgents. Added to this difficulty is the fact that there are elements within the government’s Army and Intelligence Service that actively provide aid to the insurgents. Up until now, no central government, including the dictatorial regime of President Pervez Musharraf, has been able to purge these subversive elements of Pakistan’s military services. In 2008, the government was forced to sign a treaty in the Northwestern Provinces that amounted to fait accompli recognition of the insurgents’ control over the area. However, this has not resulted in any let up of insurgent activities in other parts of the country.  

The overriding American concern regarding Pakistan is that Islamic Jihadists might gain control of the country’s small but potent nuclear arsenal. That is why the President’s plan includes billions of dollars to economic incentives to Pakistan in exchange for that country’s support. Given the historical dislike for America that prevails there and that country’s hypersensitive feeling of sovereignty, he is, in effect, buying its loyalty and assistance.  

Apparently, Afghanistan and Pakistan were both exuberant over the new plan. The question remains, however, will the president follow through and carry it out to its conclusion, however long that may take? I would also ask, will the plan achieve its desired results, which is a world free of any threat of attack by Islamic Jihadists? The answers to these questions, in my mind, are no and no. Even if the Taliban is defeated in its attempt to regain control over Afghanistan and bin Laden and al Zawahiri are sent packing for a meeting with their 72 virgins, the Fundamentalist Movement has been too decentralized to think that all threats will have been removed.  

This is not to say that we should not implement the plan. However, many more American troops will eventually be required, as many if not more than were deployed during the War in Iraq. Which leads to my second major point in this article. 

In a March 26, 2009 speech before the Senate Armed Services AirLand Subcommittee, Thomas Donnelly, Resident Fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute set the stage by stating,

The amount of these cuts is not yet certain. In more than one speech, Obama stated that he would reduce defense spending by 10%. One internet pundit stated that there would be no spending cuts at all. Based on Obama’s own words, and all that has been written about it, I believe that the former is more correct. 

Mr. Donnelly went on the describe to the subcommittee members his often-repeated argument that, due to the nature of the threat facing America, there is an urgent need to expand our nation’s land forces. The impacts that the simultaneous conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan had on the members of our military and their families clearly showed that we do not have sufficient land forces to meet the needs of the country. However, Mr. Donnelly went one step further, when he told the senators,

(The full text of Mr. Donnelly’s speech can be found at Small Wars Journal.) 

Mr. Donnelly was clearly promoting a dual focus need for the U.S. military here, making a point that I am afraid will be lost on too many Congressional and Administration minds as the budget process progresses. This is the need for continued spending on conventional war capabilities, with emphasis on air, sea, and space power, primarily to meet a potential threat from China’s rapidly growing military. As has too often been the case throughout our country’s history when it comes to setting budget priorities, unless a threat is staring you in the face, needed money is spent elsewhere. Based on recent presidential rhetoric, I suspect that once again this is the case. Both Candidate Obama and President Obama mentioned that money will not be spent on weapons to meet yesterday’s threat. Since there is no apparent immediate need to expand the initial planned fleets of F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft, for example, funding for subsequent procurements will probably be canceled, while our aging fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighters continue to be phased out of service.  

The second point that Mr. Donnelly made promoted an increase in the number of Army and Marine combat units, a step that the president has indicated he would take. This is correctly perceived as an immediate need, and is expected to be budgeted. (Hopefully, Congress will also plan to include the additional equipment needed by the expanded ground forces, including tanks, armored personnel vehicles, body armor, etc.) We can expect vigorous debate in Congress and in the media as well, even on this aspect of the defense budget. There will be those on the Left who will oppose Obama’s plan to expand the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as many who would prefer to use the budget to expand domestic programs. 

Some of my fellow conservatives have applauded President Obama’s announced intention to carry forward the fight against Islamic Jihad, and I join them in doing so. However, I would not bet what little is left of my 401(k) that in two, three, or four years that he will be willing to “stay-the-course”. It could make his re-election far more difficult and, for liberals, that is far more important than national security.___________________________ 

RELATED ARTICLES: 

The Real Afghan Issue Is Pakistan
The president has his priorities reversed.
By GRAHAM ALLISON and JOHN DEUTCH
March 30, 2009 at Wall Street Journal Online

Mr. Obama took a giant step beyond the Bush administration's "Afghanistan policy" when he named the issue "AfPak" -- Afghanistan, Pakistan and their shared, Pashtun-populated border. But this is inverted. We suggest renaming the policy "PakAf," to emphasize that, from the perspective of U.S. interests and regional stability, the heart of the problem lies in Pakis

***********************

Senator: Expect painful cuts in Pentagon budget 
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Mar 31, 2009 at Breitbart.com

A Senate defense committee chairman says Pentagon budget will include large, painful cuts. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Tuesday that major program cuts will not be pushed off until the 2011 budget, but will be included when Defense Secretary Robert Gates sends his spending plan to the president later this month.  
________________________

RETURN TO ARCHIVES PAGE                           RETURN TO HOME PAGE