Lieberman's Trip, Christian Pacifism and Mr. Heston revisited

By Joe Lieberman
Op-Ed
November 29, 2005

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. ...
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. ... If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority. ...
In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. ...
None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago ... than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead. ...
While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. ...
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. ...
Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come. ...
These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too. ...
Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut

HOW COME THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA ISN'T REPORTING THIS ON THEIR FRONT PAGES? DON'T TELL ME THAT THE MSM DOESN'T HAVE AN AGENDA AND LIBERAL BIAS !!!!,,(excuse the rant,,JF)









"Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... [W]e have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." —Theodore Roosevelt








"Republicans have a majority...so why can't Republicans do something about immigration or spending or taxes or energy or missile defense or marriage or right-to-life? I have a two-word answer: liberal Republicans. The media calls them 'moderate Republicans.' There is nothing 'moderate' about them." —Paul Weyrich





"In recent weeks most Democrats seem to have concluded that the war effort is a sinking ship, the American people have already jumped overboard, and if Democrat politicians follow them off the side, the people will reward them by putting them in charge of the life rafts." —James Taranto





"Terrorists are also winning the psychological warfare, partly because the jihadists are unified behind a goal and we often are not. They want territory and they want to kill 'infidels.' American leftists want 'peace,' without realizing that peace is a byproduct of defeating evil. The left also wants to use the war for partisan political gain and will seek to deprive President Bush of any credit for victory because it could benefit him politically. How sick is that?" —Cal Thomas





"Our college campuses have become the last safe haven of Marxists, largely because its adherents have never had to survive in the real world, much less in a communist dictatorship. Indeed, there are more communists teaching in the State of North Carolina than there are in the former Soviet Union." —Mike Adams





"In early 2009 [Hillary Clinton] could become not only the first woman president, but the first president to bring White House furniture in with her." —Joseph Sobran

Is this a Clinton version of "Rooms to Go"??,,,JF

"Fed up with being endlessly told 'the American people' have turned against the war in Iraq, Republicans asked the Democrats to show what they had in their hand and vote on a resolution to withdraw the troops. By a vote of 403-3, the House of Representatives wasn't willing to bet that 'the American people' want to pull out of Iraq. (This vote also marked the first time in recent history that the Democrats did not respond to getting their butts kicked by demanding a recount.)" —Ann Coulter





The Folly Of Christian Pacifism

Sword of David

At a dinner with some friends recently one man commented on the subject of Christian Pacifism and asked how a Christian could own, carry weapons, and (good heavens) even be willing to use them to kill.After I wiped the food I unintentionally launched at him via my astonished mouth, I kindly explained why he was wrong, and why his pastor, regardless of how learned he may be, was wrong.Some modern Christians believe that we are all called to be pacifists and turn our backs on weapons of any sort. They believe that we are to be docile and submissive to any government or governing authority, and by extension, never resist anything with violence as it is not our job to do so. Moreover, they believe that we must never use violence against anyone, and that we must always turn our cheek to an aggressor. In short, these misguided Christians believe that we should leave all earthly things in other hands and focus exclusively on spiritual matters. I believe that these well-intentioned Christians are mistaken. I believe they have been misled by clergy who misunderstand the Scriptures…or who for otherwise personal reasons have intentionally misinterpreted God’s word. I believe that God calls us to be faithful, and to rely on Him for all things, but He also calls us to be watchful, and being watchful, able to act upon that which we see. What good is it to be watchful if when something is seen, no one was going to do anything about it anyway? Watchfulness is only useful when there is a capacity to act.I also believe that He does not call us to meekly (popular meaning) submit to those who would do us evil (either physical or spiritual). How can any man not fight for his wife, his children or his nation when they are put in harm's way by an evil man? And how can any Christian submit to any group who forbids them from raising their children by the Word of God?God calls us to be strong and courageous (Joshua 1:9) as much as we are spiritually or physically able. God calls all of us to be alert (Eph 5:15), some to be armed (Luke 22:36), and all to resist and abhor evil wherever it is found (Rom 12:9). I have included biblical references to back up what I write.I am not a Pastor, nor even a theologian. I am just an interested sinner, a man at arms that God called. And when He called me, He did not make me discard my “sword”. I have read the Scriptures and this is what I read in them. The lions are NOT our legacy. I will discuss this issue in several parts.One, God does not call us to be pacifists. He calls us to love one another, and that part of the manifestation of that love is the willingness to fight, kill, or die for those you love. Possibly to kill or if needed, possibly to die for them. As Christians we may try to love the enemies whom we face in battle, but we certainly love those whom we are fighting for, our families and country, even more. When the two come into conflict, whether on a dark street, or in a big battlefield, a choice must be made. Who do you love more? Not choosing is the luxury of the coward. Some Christians that argue the point, refer to Jesus’ teachings, and proclaim that Our Lord was Himself a pacifist. They argue that we are supposed to love one another, and if we love as God asks us to love, we can never use force or violence against another one of God’s creations. Furthermore, they point out Jesus’ words “about turning the other cheek”. They also point to Our Lord instructing Peter to “put the sword in its place”. And that those who live by the sword shall perish by it. First of all, the turning cheek business has a different meaning than a simple slap. A slap on the face was an insult, not necessarily thought of as a physical attack. Think of a 21st Century slap as someone rudely giving you the finger. God is NOT telling us that if a man punches us full force in the face we are to allow him to also kick us in the crotch! Nor does it follow that if a man comes in to rape your wife, you will also offer him your daughter. Only a fool or a coward without the guts to keep from getting kicked in the crotch or to defend his family would suggest such a thing!The sword episode with Peter is especially important, and shows us that had Jesus not approved of swords, there would have been no swords in evidence that night. I'll bet you my 401K that none of the remaining apostles had any idols, prostitutes, or anything of the sort on hand. Yet there were two swords among them. Hmmm.When Peter stood and drew the sword, Jesus told him to put it in its place, not to get rid of it. Hmmmm. Also what many of the pacifists forget is that Christ gave Himself up willingly because it was His mission to do so. He wasn't taken, He wasn't murdered, He gave Himself to this to obey His Father. It’s no mystery. Its there for those who wish to read it.Later Christ also said that those who live by the sword shall perish by it. "Those who live by" it, not those who use it. We are not to live by the sword, but by the Word of God. That doesn't mean we aren't to use them WHEN APPROPRIATE TO DO SO.Two, He does not expect us to unconditionally submit to authority. As soon as an authority (any authority) prevents us from living as He calls us to live, that authority has turned from God and no longer has His blessing. We must not submit to such an authority, rather we must resist it.The Word is full of situations where rulers turned from God and were thwarted. Moses' mother defied the Pharaoh by not allowing Moses to be killed as a boy, Rahab lied to protect the Israelites, Joseph and Mary defied the government by taking their son away to Egypt. I read and do not see the unconditional submission that some pastors call for. When an authority prevents you from living as a Christian, that authority is no longer from God. It makes me wonder what some of these unconditional submission crowd would have done with regards to Hitler, Stalin, Castro, or even our own Saddam. Would they have burned bibles or turned in fellow believers to "submit to government"??Three, that we, with His help and blessing, are responsible for our own selves, family, and community. He calls us to provide for our own. We rely on His help, but that it is an active reliance, not a passive one. Part of that provision is security."But if anyone does not provide for his own, and specially those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever".1 Timothy 5:8Part of "provide" is security. This can no more be shirked off to the authorities than the feeding, clothing, and spiritual training of your children can. If you do, you are worse than..well, you know.Four, that to insure our freedom to live as Christians, to insure the security and freedom of our loved ones, able Christians that are called by God to do so, must “sell their cloaks”, and as Jesus our Lord asked His men to do in Luke 22:36, purchase the means to insure all these things we discussed. In the 21st Century, those means are firearms.Those who would prevent you from "selling your cloak to buy a sword", which by chronological application today means a handgun, and by extension carrying it around with you, are in effect preventing you from exercising your religious beliefs, and living your life as your God calls you to live it. Such prohibition is a heinous violation of your God given right to religious freedom. So, to recap. God calls us to be strong in faith in Him. He calls us to attempt to live in peace with all men as much as lies on us. He calls us to be alert to the evil around us, and to abhor it. He calls us to provide for our own (part of which is security). And finally, through reading His Word, we are called...some of us..to pick up the sword of a mighty man of God and wield it in faith.
__________________Gabe SuarezSuarez International USA, Inc.303 East Gurley Street, Suite 461Prescott, Arizona 86301 USAOffice 928-776-4492Fax 928-776-8218Mobile 928-308-1512info@suarezinternational.comMany shooting schools arewilling to stand behind their students -We are willing to stand in front of them!


This may be 6 years old, but still relevant,,JF





Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum, Feb 16, 1999


I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling repainted I'll do my best….. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you, the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know ... I'm pretty old ... but I sure, Lord, ain't senile.As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated. For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe. I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out Innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite. Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!" But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys-subjects bound to the British crown.In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, and new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it." Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs --- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not ..... need not ..... tell their patients that they are infected.At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name. In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery. In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students. Yeah, I know that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now. For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American ... with a capital letter on "American."Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign. As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David HowardGot fired because some people in public employ were morons who: (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly, (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are - by your grandfathers' standards - cowards.Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia if you, supposed soldiers of free thought and expression, lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."
If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people. You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might. Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam. In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so - at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend. What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer"- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word."I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF. I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF. I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..."It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T(Doesn’t he now do a cop show as a detective solving sex crimes?,,JF) fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore."SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...." Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that." "I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it." Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner's, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk. When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents.When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways.When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you...petition them, oust them, banish them.When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience's of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you