From this morning’s White House cabinet meeting (emphasis added):

Q Sir, Senator Kerry has suggested halting shipments to the emergency oil reserves. Your energy bill is a long-term strategy. What are some short-term steps that can be taken?
THE PRESIDENT: If people had acted on my energy bill when I submitted it three years ago, we would be in a much better situation today.
Secondly, we will not play politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That Petroleum Reserve is in place in case of major disruptions of energy supplies to the United States. The idea of emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve plays — would put America in a dangerous position in the war on terror. We’re at war. We face a tough and determined enemy on all fronts. And we must not put ourselves in a worse position in this war. And playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would do just that.

Newsflash! Did anyone else know we were at war? Maybe President Bush should start emphasizing that. Really. I know Bush’s pollsters tell him he needs to perpetuate the myth of the strong wartime president, but doesn’t common sense place a boundary on this? Must we tie everything to terrorism? What does the war on terrorism have to do with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
I know, I know. If we don’t march lockstep with Bush’s agenda it weakens America and the terrorists win. . . .

Note to self: It’s really not a good idea to weedeat poison ivy in close proximity to your exposed legs.
It’s odd: for years I rarely had any issues with poison ivy. But it’s a different story the last few summers. My current irritation isn’t too bad, but it’s noticeable in the shower and when I slip into itch mode.

That’s what I’ve heard some A.M. radio warriors advocate we do in the Middle East. Literally.
Reader jeff-perado (stutz [at] unlv.nevada.edu) dissects one such offering by Pepperdine University professor Bruce Herschensohn:

Pepperdine University is one of the more highly esteemed “Christian Colleges.” They uphold high academic standards as opposed to, lets say, Liberty College. Anyway, let us just agree that Pepperdine is an upper echelon university. I
would include it in the group of Notre Dame and Loyola, for example. They also profess standard Christian doctrine. There is nothing wrong with that, again that is a good thing in my mind (even though I do disagree with the religion, the IDEALS are in the right place!)
Here is an excerpt of the essay written by Mr. Herschensohn:

It may seem to be a radical idea, but why not use every means possible — without politically correct detours — to win the war against terrorism?
Our victory in World War II was not achieved by trying to win the hearts and minds of Germans and Japanese. We did not dominate the newsreels with pictures of those things a few American troops did to captured enemies. We did not call for an end to domestic profiling. We did not demonstrate against our military involvement. There was not the outrageous political complaint that “I support the troops but oppose the war.”
Instead of all that, we bombed our enemies to submission with all the power and weaponry we had available. After our costly invasion of Europe, with immense U.S. casualties, the atomic bomb was ready — and to prevent another invasion we used it on Japan.

Just so I make this clear in everyone’s mind, this guy is a professor at the Christian college, Pepperdine University. First, I am told, Christians profess something called “Christian Love.” I know this to be true, as I see it in practice quite often with most “everyday” Christians. So then explain to me how this nut can hold a position of authority over young Christian minds at a University? Clearly, he is unhinged in the vein of Ted Kaczinsky, i.e. the Unabomber.
I mean it is appalling that a man who thinks like that is not begging for handouts out on the street while preaching from Paul’s epistle to the Romans.
For he deserves no place in an institute of higher learning.
He actually suggests that we “bomb into submission” all the terrorists around the world. Now I will ask you, where and who are these terrorists? Is it Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden? How about the Iraqis? Are these terrorists called
Hamas? Should we consider Syria and Lebanon targets because of their ties to Hezbollah? How far into the terrorist ranks should we go? Should we bomb entire cities that contains even one cell of six Al Qaeda members? Remember they found on in Buffalo, New York….
I am serious here. To bomb into submission, for example, Hamas, would mean flattening Israel. Hamas members live among them. Could you imagine that? A Christian Professor at a Christian College suggesting to Bush that we nuke Israel back into Biblical times. That is one for the record books.
But let us return our attention back to Iraq. Recall, if you will, that before the war our reason for invading was WMDs. When none were found Bush scrambled to realign his motives, and came up with a war of liberation. In other words Bush told us we were fighting to liberate Iraq. Now this guy, Herschensohn, comes along, and says that we should forget about liberation, we should bomb
them into submission. The mass genocide of killing thousands of women and children seems to be the solution of terrorism in Iraq for this guy. Am I to believe that this is the Christian belief now? I don’t think it is, and for Pepperdine to employ this kook is shameful.
But wait, you think that this guy has already spoken of all the craziness he could fathom? NOPE! Read the next thing he says:

But if we want to win the war against terrorism we must accept a lengthy war with many casualties, because the consequences of defeat will mean our future generations will be left to lifetimes of fear. If we lose this war, we will be on the road back to the Middle Ages.

I guess I should not have gone through with that lobotomy after all, for only a brain damaged buffoon could agree with this guy. Does anyone remember that the Middle Ages was the time of acceptable mores such as torture, and an anything-goes-in-wartime attitude, and wars (read crusades) fought on the basis of
religion reigned supreme. I have to ask this, how is resorting to these very tactics going to prevent the Middle Ages from returning. I mean the things
this guy is advocating is that very return to the Middle Ages he seeks to avoid!!!
Apparently to this guy if “our” side commits acts of torture, genocide, infanticide, rape, and humiliation, and religious coercion, then we are
preventing the return of the Middle Ages and are acting to “preserve” our society. But if the “other” side, that of the terrorists, commits acts of torture, genocide, infanticide, rape, and humiliation, and religious coercion, then we are sliding into the Middle ages.
I guess that this guy feels that morality and civilization hinges only on whose blood is flowing freely in the street.
Listen to his tool of fear to promote his vision of an all out bloodbath and nuclear fire:

If we should lose this war on terror, Americans could march to re-education camps, others will become boat people and the U.S. will become a Western mirror of Cambodia’s genocide.

How does he think this is going to happen? Is he suggesting that Osama bin Laden is going to blow into this country and take over? This is pure paranoia.
Let me lay some reality on you. The U.S. is currently fighting two “wars,” the war on terror and the war on drugs. Terror has killed dozens in Iraq (where we don’t belong in the first place — at least on the basis of fighting terror), and over 3,000 on 9-11 in this country. That is it. Drugs, on the other hand kills literally thousands of Americans EVERY SINGLE YEAR, and if alcohol were included, then tens of thousands of Americans dead at the hands of drugs.
It doesn’t take a brain scientist to figure out this guy is barking up the wrong tree when it comes to the real threat to America. Besides, the strategy
of “bombing into submission” ultimately would lead to America destroying every other country on the face of the planet, beginning with the Muslims, then the communists, the Chinese, the …
The realistic strategy for protecting America from terrorists would be homeland security. Preventing attacks on our soil means tightening up our borders, and protecting our infrastructure. The international side to protecting ourselves from terrorists is better relations with the Muslim world, and other “problem areas” of diplomacy.
This frees up resources to fight the real war, on drugs.
You know I wish I could say that the piece Mr. Herschensohn wrote was just a joke. But it was not, there are actual Americans who are just that deranged. And the fact that this man is connected with Christianity is all the worse, because it further stains an already battered belief system.
By the way, I can prove to you that this guy is insane with one simple observation. But first I wish to provide one last quote of his:

The devil with allowing privileged sanctuaries for the enemy as we did during much of the Vietnam War.

I should point out that these “sanctuaries” he refers to include Saudi Arabia, and much of OPEC for that matter. By “bombing them into submission” would destroy those countries. And as we are still totally dependent their oil… I guess with no source of energy, after this bombing campaign this crackpot
suggests, we really will be in the “Dark Ages” with no gas for our cars, and no electricity for our lights.

This effort to compare how we fight al Qaeda with how we fought WWII or any other war completely misses the mark. There we were fighting nation states which waged war with armor and thousands of troops. There we could, to some degree, “bomb our enemies to submission ” by destroying their infrastructure and capacity to produce tanks, planes, and ships. Here we are confronting a foe who wields box cutters, suicide bombs, and hatred. A bombing into submission strategy isn’t effective in combating the first two and will only increase the latter element. That’s why this is primarily a battle of ideas and intelligence, not military might.
By the way, I don’t quite agree with jeff-perado’s characterization of terrorism above. On a global level, it’s a bigger issue than a paragraph suggests. But he is correct in pointing out that an American is far more likely to fall prey to a drunk driver than a terrorist. But drunk driving isn’t nearly as sexy an issue in the news room or on the campaign trail, is it?

It’s about time:

The United States government has decided to halt monthly $335,000 payments to the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, an official with the group said on Monday.
Mr. Chalabi, a longtime exile leader and now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, played a crucial role in persuading the administration that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power.
. . .
Internal reviews by the United States government have found that much of the information provided as part of the classified program before American forces invaded Iraq last year was useless, misleading or even fabricated.

That was money well spent, wasn’t it? But hey, the ends justified the means and Mr. Chalabi served his purpose by facilitating the war some in the government wanted. It’s all good.

This sheds more light on Abu Rhraib:

The White House’s top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for “war crimes” as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.
The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes–and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves– is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes–defined in part as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to “U.S. officials” and that punishments for violators “include the death penalty,” Gonzales told Bush that “it was difficult to predict with confidence” how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions–such as that outlawing “outrages upon personal dignity” and “inhuman treatment” of prisoners–was “undefined.”

Props to Newsweek for more investigative work on this–I wonder who’s been leaking. At any rate the evidence is growing of a systematic U.S government effort to skirt or even disregard the Geneva Convention.
So much for moral authority.