29 November 2006

Well, well, well. I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the New York Times has published yet another confidential, classified White House memorandum that tells us that President Bush has a lack of confidence that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki will be successful in getting the Shiite militias under control, especially the Badr Brigades of Imam Moqtada al-Sadr. And so interesting, the story based upon that leaked memo is published the morning that the President is scheduled to hold a meeting in Amman, Jordan with both Prime Minister al-Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah. Well, to quote an 80s TV show, LA Law's lead character Douglas McKenzie, "Don't you just love a good coincidence?" Yes, indeed, and of course, the meeting was canceled for at least one day, allowing the President of the United States to hold up in an Amman hotel for an additional day, if he's even successful in one of the most important political meetings of the decade, one which will possibly determine the future of the Iraq war.

I wish I had the power to do what I would like to the New York Times, after what they did in revealing the numerous leaks of classified documents, from the NSA intercepts of international calls of terrorists into the U.S. to the release of the program of successfully trace the bank accounts used by terrorist organizations. Even today, Michelle Malkin, in her blog, notes that the NSA has made a full disclosure of the intercept program, and the panel, which included Bill Clinton's former White House counsel Lanny Davis, unanimously stated that the NSA has actually been extremely effective in effecting safeguards for civil liberties with the program. So much so that Lanny Davis stated that he wished that the country could have had this information, which would reassure them that the Bush administration is indeed totally committed to protecting civil liberties while fighting terrorism. But don't hold your breath that the Times will ever print that story. I think the term "traitors" is accurately applicable to the New York Times, and it is disappointing that we cannot prosecute them all for either treason, or at least the 1917 Espionage Act, which I understand from Hugh Hewitt (who is a law professor as well as a conservative radio-blog commentator

Someday groups like the Times will learn that freedom of the press, while wide and expansive, is not infinite, and that revealing secrets to the world, including the enemy, in a time of war in the name of cheap political gain, is not just simply classless and unethical. It's illegal. It's treason. And criminals should be punished.

And traitors must die.

We can only pray and hope.


--Belisarius II----"For the Cid and for Spain!"--

27-28 November 2006--As The World Sleeps

Bret Stephens in Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial page has spoken a basic fact right out loud: From here on we need to treat Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy that needs to be opposed and never again trusted, not as long as he is in power. For several years I was willing to give that man the benefit of the doubt: his imprisoning of rich, oligarchical political opponents who also had huge connections to the Russian Mafia, the ruthless bring-down of that Mafia in order to bring runaway crime back under control, the employment of Reaganesque tax and market reforms that now give Russia one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world, the ruthlessness with which he dealt with Muslim extremists in Cechnya and Al Qaeda mass murderers in the aftermath of their 9/11 done to children and parents in Besalan. I could understand that it would be no help establishing democracy if there was no stable society to employ democracy with, that sometimes harsh and ruthless measures are necessary. So I for one was like Condoleeza Rice, who, after the initial victory over Saddam Hussein in Iraq, said that we should "punish the French, ignore the Germans, and forgive the Russians."

That has changed for me, and the murder of investigative journalists, democratic dissidents, clampdowns on evangelical churches, and now the poison murder of a former KGB agent with Putin-who became an erstwhile Putin critic--and done in London, no less, has changed me. The discovery of Russia's designs to pour massive military weaponry (which they can no longer use) into China, Venezuela, and nuclear power construction to Iran has indicated to me a pronounced anti-American attitude. It clearly indicates that Putin's wish to reconstitute Russia as a major power is not limited to becoming a militarily and economically strong democracy, but rather, as a somewhat weaker but still quite dangerous rival of the USA. In the case of the arrangement with Iran, Russia's denials of supply of weaponizable nuclear fuel is believed by noone outside Iran and Russia, for the fuel, as Mr. Stephens points out, is capable of making up to 60 nuclear bombs! Needless to say, that should scare the bijesus out of any sober individual. But just in case---sleepy people! Iran, imagine! 60 nuclear bombs within a couple of years! Yeah! Oh, isn't that someone to negotiate with!

But the Republicans in the USA gave up the Congress, though not by much--the Senate is almost split in half, the House almost as close---but we gave it up by our clumsiness, apathy, and the guilt-by-association tarring by our "objective" news media. That is the "old media" and idiots like the kool-aid drinkers in places like the "Daily Kos" blog. Well, hopefully my party---yes, Virginia--my party--will get the "let's make more dough with power" out of their system from here on and help the apathetic and shallow who, for no reason except one screwy congressman (Mark Foley) and a hard-fought war where the casualties equal about two days at Iwo Jima in February 1945, decided to think that a retreat-and-surrender, perverted gay marriage-supporting, unborn baby-killing, euthanasia-loving, tax-and-spend, free-market-killing, Christianity-resisting, history-distorting, political-correctness-loving, patriotism-belittling gang of thugs that passes for a "Democratic" party could do a better job of resisting an existential threat to America's existence that she will have to fight almost alone. (Australia and Israel excepted).

Well, we are asleep, and during a war. This is good, and really commendable of the world's lead power. NOT!!!!! Well, I am doing more praying these days. Praying for my President, as he has to walk an ever-smaller tightrope, and for a country that doesn't seem to notice that she hangs by a thread from losing everything she has. This is the home of my family, my loved ones. My home! I am not about to give that up. And that doesn't even address the fate awaiting people who worship the God I know in nations around the world, especially those on the edge of gaining the sword of fundamentalist Islam at their throats.

A few months ago, I apologized for taking a hard line on the Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in stating that I did not want the cease fire, and letting Syria and Iran off the hook yet again. Recent events, culminating in the election and the lame caterwauling for retreat to---to where?--have forced a decided change of mind. I am retracting that apology. I want war. Better to do it now, when the Islamist enemy is still relatively weak, and can be defeated with far less loss of life, than to do it later when hundreds of millions may die. Yes, I said hundreds of millions dead---and a planet horribly effected from the weapons used--either to spread the Islamist jihad, or to defeat it.

Yes, I want war, the kind that leaves a lot more people alive than the war that will come later if we pretend this whole Iraq and Middle East thing was a big misunderstanding. But oh no, I'm the warmonger, I'm the conspiracy nut, I'm the right-wing wacko. Well, let those who criticized think what they like.

"The tree of liberty must be enriched, from time to time, by the blood of patriots, and tyrants." (American founder James Otis). (And, I might add, by the blood of terrorists, and traitors.).

The only answer for jihad---is a crusade.

--Belisarius II--

22-23 November 2006

Well, hello. Today is now Thanksgiving Day in the USA. I hope that anyone who reads this will have a really blessed holiday, where people can have the opportunity to give thanks for the good things in their lives, irregardless of their faith, or lack thereof. However, it is first of all a Christian holiday, and in that context only a Christian, or perhaps a Jew or Muslim, can be thankful in a proper context for the blessings of God over this wonderful country in which we live so bountifully. Well, I am including some thoughts in reaction earlier this evening to some comments made in another blog by a good friend. I think he was trying to say that there is no basis for a Christian in the West to be arrogant or think that his culture's form of Christianity is inherently superior. If that was true then fine, but it appears that he went a little too far in that expression, like Christians should not celebrate their Western heritage. I took issue with those sentiments in a reply to his blog. Hopefully that wasn't what he meant, because he is a leader of a Christian community in this area, and a growing number of young people look up to him. He's a pretty decent guy, who I really respect for his leadership skills and his commitment to our common faith. Well, here's the reply I made. It dovetails well with the opinions made last week about multiculturalism.

[Dear friend], in reference to your reply to [third party contributor to his blog], you wrote:

“I think the most basic meaning of the quote is that the Gospel is essentially transcultural; there is no one culture that can say the Gospel is best understood, applied, lived in our particular culture. It should never be considered as belong to one culture in an exclusive or exalting sort of way.”

My response is dependent upon what you mean semantically in your comments. If you mean by those statements that the Gospel can be applied to and transform any society that embraces it, that is true. No society or culture owns the Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus owns the world, and each culture will be judged on the degree to which it accepted or rejected the Word. Or actually, the degree of the numbers of people who receive the Gospel, and employ it in shaping their lives in their culture, transforming that culture the way that the Holy Spirit transforms the penitent individual man. And no one culture possesses the right to insist on other cultures expressing the Gospel in the same way as they, except in the requirement that we all must alike accept the same Gospel message, and the same principles that flow from the Scriptures.

It is solely in their expression that diversity can have its proper place, not in its theology. That truth is shown today in the fact that it is in the Christian communities of the Third World where the greatest devotion to doctrinal purity is now expressed, while the historical denominations of the West, especially Europe, have so rejected their traditional teachings that they can no longer be justly called Christian churches at all.

However, if by the above statements you made you mean that no one civilization has the right to say that the Gospel has had a greater impact upon its life, or acts as a foundation for its existence, then you are simply ignoring history. Even the portions of Africa which was influential upon the earliest development of the faith (Athanasius’ Egypt or Augustine’s Hippo, for example), were actually parts of a European-Mediterranean Roman Empire, both pre- and post-Constantinian. Ethiopia’s Judeo-Christian culture was directly connected to Judaism under Solomon and Christianity under the Apostles, particularly Philip’s impartation of the grace of Christ to the Ethiopian potentate the Acts calls ‘the eunuch.’ And the sub-Saharan expressions of the Christian church trace their beginnings to Western missionaries and church planters.

Can native African animism claim a Scriptural foundation? Or Hinduism of India, or ancient poly-spiritual China and Asia, or Islam of the Middle East and South Asia? Or, God forbid, the trans-cultural curse of atheism, whether in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Mengistu’s Ethiopia, Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia? The West, to the degree it has failed, is to the degree it departed from its foundations. The West is no exclusivist possessor of Christianity, but to ignore history and pretend that it has no reason to boast of a Christian foundation for its civilization is as laughable as the act of the European Union in removing any mention of Christianity in its preamble’s recitation of Europe’s historical origins.

As a Westerner, I humbly must acknowledge the flaws of my culture, and pray for the Lord to yet have mercy on us again and bring us revival. But it is healthy and right to take non-arrogant pride in the fact that it is Western civilization which was the first to embrace the faith as a transforming and foundational ethic. Some will call that healthy and patriotic pride a form of racism, and that Western Christianity should only feel shame for its heritage. That is no more fair than to tell African Christians that they should live in shame because their recent ancestors were shamans or Muslims. When Western Christians, especially Americans, are allowed to celebrate their distinctiveness while embracing the new heritage of faith now built by their brothers everywhere else, the divide of East and West, North and South, of race and ethnicity, will go a long way toward being healed.

Well, that's all for now. God bless and Happy Thanksgiving.

Posting your comment.

21-22 November 2006

We fiddle while the cities burn. Pierre Gemayel, the third highest ranking member of the Lebanese cabinet, the scion of Lebanon's leading Christian political family, was gunned down today by Hezbollah-Al Qaeda-Syrian-Iranian supported assassins, and another cabinet member narrowly escaped a similar fate on Tuesday. And no attention is being paid at all here to what is clearly an effort by Iran and Syria to overthrow the democratic government of Lebanon as we speak, and replace it with a terrorist regime. It is no accident that this is happening. Mohammed Massoud, the leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, was killed by an Al Qaeda suicide bomber sent by Osama bin Laden on 9 September 2001, on behalf of the Taliban, two days before 9/11, and as a deliberate precursor to the infamous attacks of that latter day. I wonder, especially in light of what has been a major uptick in Internet "chatter" in Jihadist chat rooms. What is next?

Later.

--Belisarius II--

19 November 2006--Crossroads

Gail and I are in a place of crossroads in our own lives and plans, not of our private lives, but of our profession and of business. We have to decide whether we accept the way of compromise and appeasement with those who would engage in a "gospel" of postmodern appeasement with the spirit of the age, or if we choose to follow the way of my hero Ronald Reagan, and "fly bold colors rather than pastel shades", and confrontation with evil. We have chosen the way of confrontation, yes, we have chosen the way of war.

I am constantly made cognizant of the fact that the culture of the world is being made hostile to liberty. And that hostility is, more than anywhere else, born in the modern Western university, which I personally witness nearly every day in my home city of San Diego, which is home to two major universities and numerous smaller colleges and community colleges large and small. We are oppressed to four major philosophies that would destroy Christian-based liberty: 1) evolution in both physical and social sciences; 2) [im]moral relativism--perverting sexuality and attacking the self-discipline essential for liberty; 3) secular humanism--attacking faith in the monotheistic Biblical God; and 4) multiculturalism--which attacks the principle that the West, the long-time procreator of democracy, preserver and propagator of Christianity, is not a giver of something greater than its flaws, and is therefore disqualified from its claim that Western civilization is on balance far more positive than negative in its effect on the world, and is therefore, not a civilization worthy of being defended.

I will, therefore, change my tone. Preaching the Gospel of Christ is not possible, nor will it be successful, if it is not inextricably wrapped with the Western-yea, the American concept of liberty. It is not merely a narrow principle contained within a limited geographical area, but the recognition that America is not a mere land, but an idea---based in Christianity and its Judeo-Christian ethic.

We will be having more to say soon, and some of it, much of it, will be video. In any event, it will be a ministry intended to do one thing--to convert the universities of the world and those who are in them to Christ. I will be trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to help me to do my part to discredit and destroy these philosophies, through persuading multitudes to renounce them. In its place I hope to build a Christianity that is easily adaptable to the new age in which we find ourselves. It will not be a religious faith, and certainly not a harsh and unreasonably rigorous one, but a liberating and humanizing one--a return to the faith as intended by Jesus and His apostles. And it will bring liberation, the only real kind.

"God wills it."

--Belisarius II--

16-17 November 2006

I have been reading a large excerpt, reprinted in a e-newsletter from the American Congress for Truth, out of Virginia Beach, Virginia, of Mark Steyn's America Alone. This book has been at the top of the Amazon and New York Times best-seller lists for several weeks now, and for good reason. As truly as any book has, what I've read of it seems to grip me with the fact that the United States is truly going to have to stand as the sole leader of resistance against the growing monster of Islamism. We definitely do NOT get it; our pathetic attempts to fashion a secular-leftist political and social system for the USA and the West and pass it off as a value system that should inspire the world to emulation is going to get nowhere in the face of Global Jihad. There has been a misconception of what is appropriate for a social ethic for the world to follow on the part of many people, including many of those with whom I am closely associated. Many of them believe that multiculturalism, the notion that no one civilization or culture has any superiority in any way over another, and that there should not be a common set of values which can be embraced by all peoples in every nation, is somehow a value of true spirituality. In a word, they believe that it is Christian.

I, however, after carefully considering, for several years, the possibility that there can be a marriage of the two systems of life referred to above, I have come to the conclusion in recent weeks that such a marriage is nothing more than a sham, in fact, a predatory relationship in which multiculturalism becomes the evil witch maven who emasculates her husband (symbolizing Christianity), and ultimately will, in the night, castrate and then murder him. I have come to the conclusion that there is a profound difference between a faith-based view of life that embraces the best universal impulses of every nation and ethnicity, each one bringing their own cultural flavor to express it, and a faith that allows itself to be reshaped and distorted to fit the preferences and desires of every culture, to the point that it has nothing to say to a society's sins and injustices. It then is stripped, sterilized, and ultimately, faith in general and Christianity in particular will perish.

The fact is that multiculturalized Christianity is not an authentic faith at all, but just another expression of its hosting culture. And in modern, or shall I say post-modern culture in the West, multiculturalism, in whatever form, is just another way of saying that we who have enjoyed all that this civilization has provided for us have really nothing to be proud of, nothing really to offer that should be emulated by the rest of the world. And Christianity is therefore expected to be a never-offending, always affirming, ever including faith. And that notion takes the heart and guts out of it.

More later.

15 November 2006

Well, I am typing away on my new laptop, which is pretty good, but has a few bugs in it. Oh, well, it'll be worked out soon enough. I am making some significant changes, but once again I take up [proverbial] pen in hand at an ungodly hour, leaving me little time to make my thoughts in depth. However, I shall say a few things that I think I can say quickly.

I don't have time to break out the research to insert the links normally necessary to support the assertions that I am making, but I'll make them anyway, because I know that they are all over the world-wide media. I would bypass the struggle over the Democrats' appointing their new leaders to control the U.S. Senate and House (which may end sooner than people may imagine), or the choice of a new U.S. Secretary of Defense, or British Prime Minister Blair's blather over being able to negotiate with Iran, or who won "Dancing with the Stars" (Emmett Smith did). Let me get to what is the most important piece of news of all: Iran is taking over Al Qaeda. That's right, the number 3 man, whose name I will fill in later, and the only one who isn't hiding in a cave, has been situated in a mansion in Tehran, courtesy of his hosts, Ahmad Ahmadinejad and the Iranian clerical government. And he is basically beginning to be manifested as the new real battle chief of Al Qaeda, under the sponsorship of Iran. And the world is basically ignoring it. State sponsorship, under a regime that is imminently about to complete weaponizing nuclear bombs, of the two ultimate Islamic terror organizations: Hezbollah and now Al Qaeda. It is a nightmare scenario, while the world chortles about local matters and Britney Spears' divorce.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Prepare for the holocaust. Oh, well, as Pope Urban would say, "God wills it!"

Oh, and by the way. A few months ago I backed off on some pronouncements I made about war, in relation to the diplomatic debacle in Lebanon, and the handcuffing of the noble effort by the Israeli Defense Forces (No, IDF did not lose its first war, the diplomats and Ehud Olmert just kept them from fighting it---can you say Vietnam and Iraq again?). I was confronted by some people who, for the best reasons, felt that the advocacy of war was somehow not a very Christian thing to do. Well, I have changed my mind. Advocacy of war to destroy a monstrous organization, or a tyrant with dreams of world domination, or a false religion that intends to impose its evil doctrine and way of life upon an unwilling world is not anti-Christian. In fact, it is very much Christian to resist evil, especially when done by legal authorization of legitimate civil authority operating under the democratically-preserved rule of law in a republican form of government.

Therefore, here it is. I wholeheartedly support and advocate all-out war against Islamofascism. I want the destruction of fundamentalist Islam, and the complete defeat of its supporters, through surrender or death. They have already declared war on us. It may be noble for an individual to submit to suffering or death in imitation of Christ's suffering, in order to show redemptive love for one's cruel enemies. It is despicable to refuse to support protecting one's family, community, or country from those who intend its destruction, or to ignore the fact that people in other countries will suffer such an unimaginable horror if we do nothing. Do not tell me about WMD: Saddam had them, and they were snuck into Iraq before the war. The proverbial wisdom on the story of the Iraq invasion were dead wrong. That will be borne out in its own time.

Last Tuesday's election defeat taught me one thing: Compromise and forbearance are unacceptable, and unproductive. From now on, I am a soldier in a war. Without a gun, yes. The time has passed for me to carry a gun. There will be ways for me to fight otherwise, that will make me one who sacrifices, and not be someone who sits on the sidelines, acting as a cheerleader while 18-year-olds die or are maimed by roadside bombs, or innocent children or blown to shreds by suicide bombers, or young women raped and murdered simply for refusing to wear a hijab in public. No, I will not stand idly by, comfortable in my San Diego home. I will find ways to join the fight, and I will take that promise seriously. I am in a crusade. And I repeat Pope Urban's call: "God wills it!"


--Belisarius II--

14 November 2006

Hello. I have been pretty well caught up in some tutoring of international students and scholars at UCSD, and discussing with Gail some pretty important decisions of a professional nature. However, I am back. I am still reeling over the results of the election. Amazing, according to final results nationwide, Democrats beat Republicans in all House districts by about 4-5 percent, much closer than expected. Yet, opposite everyone's expectations, redistricting did not protect Republicans, and such a close election still resulted in the Dems gaining about 27-30 seats, depending upon the results of recounts and runoffs in about four Congressional districts. One can hope. Just the same, more may be happening than what is on its face. Possible breaks in Democratic unity, possible desertions in Senate and House, and one may be looking at a very different result of who holds what control in January.

But overshadowing that situation is the fact that Iraq is, at least in Baghdad and a few other areas, almost chaotic. Iran is a lot closer to getting the bomb made than anyone (except "doomsday" guys like me) expected. The Iranians and Syrians have managed to get an army of 12-22,000 soldiers in Al Qaeda into Iraq, and the Iranians have apparently started a major power move to take over the operating control over Al Qaeda, an effort I think will be successful. Furthermore, it looks like the Iranians and Syrians are just days from using their surrogate, Hezbollah, to overthrow the democratic government in Lebanon. And the British authorities have identified hundreds more terrorist cells in both their country and in North America. This is the fact of this situation. And yet the slender yet sufficiently significant majority in this country have decided to pick on an ineffective Republican congressional leadership, along with the President, and pretend that it's 9/10/01 once again, and that the party is back on. It is an interesting spiritual coincidence that Britney Spears, the emblem of the carefree 90s, is getting a divorce and is coming back into the entertainment scene again. Nothing against Britney personally, she's actually a nice lady when she's not with such losers as the ex-, and is of course one of the most beautiful women around with her baby fat off, but societies tend to associate certain people with certain trends and attitudes. And we are back in the pre-9/11 world, and that is deadly.

(Oh, by the way, not meaning to trash the girl, Britney Spears does vote for President Bush, and supports the troops and the war. Just another reason to never judge by mere appearances.).

We are going to have to make our feelings known, in ways that will matter. I will be talking about that, on the legal front, in the days to come. Adios.

--Belisarius II--

11 November 2006

I am Belisarius. From this day on I am at war. I am at war with those who support evil of any kind. From Islamofascism to Communism, defeated but not yet destroyed and now emerged in the form of evil regimes from North Korea to China to Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and now Nicaragua, to the evil ones in cheap dictatorships and local fiefdoms and fanatical anti-Christian groups. I am at war. I'll say more later.

--Belisarius II--