Andrew Hagen

I’ve struggled with this for a long time. I now follow my conscience.

Earlier I had unequivocally endorsed John Kerry for President. (*) I based my decision on Kerry’s strong support for energy independence. Since then, however, Kerry has all but ignored the issue of energy independence. Furthermore, George W Bush has paid lip service to the idea. Neither candidate stands above the other on this critical issue. Neither strikes me as a true believer. Consequently, I must rethink my endorsement of Kerry.

Kerry’s switching of positions on numerous issues indicates to me that he is both a liar and a person who does not think seriously about the present war. I doubt that John Kerry truly believes that the Global War on Terrorism is a real war upon the outcome of which hangs the future of our country. Kerry doesn’t have a position on the war so much as he has an attitude on it. It isn’t that he’s antiwar. It’s that he has no well-thought, consistent, articulable position. Kerry’s is an unserious mind.

I agree with much of John Kerry’s platform as written, but I do not believe he believes in his platform as written.

I withdraw my endorsement of Kerry.

I would endorse much of John Kerry’s domestic policy as it is stated in the Democratic Party written platform, especially on the economy and the environment.

I would endorse most of George W Bush’s foreign policy, even though the White House’s execution of it has often failed significantly.

I endorse no candidate for President.

Regardless of who wins, Bush or Kerry, our country is in for a very difficult four years. Neither man is a great leader. Neither man will be able to unite the country. The national challenges pending are great.

Unity is what the USA needs now. There is one union under one flag. Since 9/11 we have spent more time fighting each other than fighting the Enemy.

The vicious partisan attacks between the Republicans and Democrats began with Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Since then we have had fights over impeachment, Kosovo, Florida 2000, 9/11, and Iraq. The list just keeps growing.

I disagree that this is a 50/50 nation. Once the American people really start paying attention, they will see that both the Republicans and Democrats are lying about their plans for the future, and neither has the best ideas to lead our nation.

This election must not become a turning point in our nation’s history, because if it does we will be dragged down by Bush or Kerry, whomever is the winner.

We need a new majority political party, not based on either the Democrats or Republicans. Until then, we the American people must do whatever we can to preserve our country under attack from abroad and at home, and we must do it without the benefit of excellent political leadership.

Al Qaeda archleader Osama Bin Laden’s propagandistic video statement is analyzed.

Thanks to the coddling nature of our paternalistic governments and the lack of courage of the free press, only excerpts of the transcript are available in English.

The BBC transcript has been watered down to turn the statement into domesticated parlor talk. (*) The Al Jazeera transcript is even less complete than the BBC’s, but it is not watered down. (†)

Al Jazeera transcript: [S]ecurity is an indispensable pillar in human life and. . . free men do not forfeit their security contrary to Bush’s claims that we hate freedom.

Here Bin Laden tries to disrupt Bush’s appeal to universal liberty with a thinly veiled threat. Bin Laden will tolerate anyone’s freedom as long as no one goes against Bin Laden. The rhetorical tactic of Bin Laden here is to sow confusion while instilling fear.

Al Jazeera transcript: [J]ust as you lay waste to our Nation so shall we lay waste to yours. . . .

[I]t had never occurred to us to strike towers.

But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the America/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

Bin Laden continues to extend the rhetoric of the Western Left that accuses the USA of being an oppressive global power. The rhetoric of the Western Left has become a warrant for the genocide of Western civilization. Furthermore, this message of the Western Left is a lie.

BBC transcript: Just as you waste our security, we will waste your security.

Note the watery nature of the BBC version.

Al Jazeera transcript: Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors and did not forget to import expertise in election fraud from the regions presidents [sic] to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

Of course, this self-proclaimed champion of freedom, this criminal mastermind of the 9/11 mass murder plot does not support democratic elections.

Al Jazeera transcript: But because it seemed to him [Bush] that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers we were given three times the period required to execute the operations.

That is a lie. Had Bush acted immediately, it would have saved only seven minutes. It’s interesting that Bin Laden tries to foment this particular lie. His desperate use of this lie is a clear indication that Bin Laden is strongly opposed to Bush winning re-election.

BBC transcript: Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security.

Here the Enemy archleader tries to justify the 9/11 attacks as if they were based on self-defense. It is a malignant, brazen, and corrupt attempt at fraud.

Over and over, Bin Laden directs his hellborn fury at George W. Bush by name. In the part of the propaganda video that we the stupid, ignorant masses are not privy to, apparently the bloodthirsty Bin Laden discourses at length on Iraq.

This is the first original Bin Laden videotape released since 2001.

It was released two days before Halloween, but more importantly it was released four days before election day 2004 here in the US.

Without doubt, Bin Laden wants to influence the US elections.

Without doubt, Bin Laden wants John Kerry to defeat George Bush.

The video is a jab at the solar plexus of America’s reservoir of courage. It is an attempt to make this goatherding kitten molester into some sort of deity. It is one of the most evil works of literature I have come across.

We must retain our common sense, and we must retain our courage. He wants us to fear him. Let us instead remain coolly determined to kill him and his minions.

Update: 1 November 2004. It turns out that the only obstacle to releasing the full transcript was Al Jazeera. (‡)

Update: 9 November 2004. Fox News says the State Department tried to keep the tape from becoming public. (§)

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) is investigating the destruction of the World Trade Center towers during the 9/11 unwarned massacre of civilians. (*)

The findings include an explanation for the time delay between the collapses of the two towers. (The south tower, Two WTC, survived for 56 minutes; the north tower, One WTC, for 103 minutes). NIST says the difference was primarily due to five items: the asymmetrical structural damage of the aircraft impact to Two WTC compared to the aircraft damage to One WTC; the time it took for heat to soften, buckle and shorten core columns that had fireproofing dislodged by debris impact; the structure’s ability to redistribute loads as the core columns shortened; the time it took for fires to traverse from their initial location to the face of the towers where perimeter columns were bowing inward (as seen only minutes before the collapse of each tower); and the time it took for heat to soften and buckle those columns.

The full NIST report will be released in the coming months. (†)

The puppet movie Team America is a mixed bag. (*) It’s as filled with profanity as the South Park movie, but it wasn’t as thoroughly funny. It tries to make a number of points of social importance, but only makes a few.

Its most important point is the film’s very existence. It is the first post–9/11 major Hollywood film on the subject of the Global War on Terrorism. It avoids any deeper question on the nature of the war by switching focus to an imaginary scenario that places the root of all evil with (spoilers) a certain nuclear-obsessed Asian dictator.

The film properly had serious moments as it focused on the victims of terrorism and oppression, but ultimately the filmmakers took great pains to remain politically correct. The message is that Islamic terrorism is not itself a great danger. The real danger is something else entirely.

The voice acting was poor. The self-referential jokes about the movie that features puppets instead of human actors grew old quickly. The joking about coerced homosexual sex was unfunny and a low point.

The bright notes were first the brilliant execution of the marionettes and the sets; second the usually funny lampooning of antiwar celebrities; and third the simple boldness in making a movie that features Arab Muslim characters engaged in anti-Western terrorism.

I would go to another puppet movie, but what I hope this movie really pioneers is the simple task of making a movie about Islamist terrorism and the fight against it.

Update: The strange similarity just occurred to me of the plots of Team America and that masterwork of cinematic trainwrecks, 2001: A Space Travesty (†)

Jack Shafer of Slate offers debating tips for those going into the ring with Tim Russert (*) or Bill O’Reilly. (†)

Ruth Peters offers parenting advice. (*)

The National African American Drug Policy Coalition is a new organization that seeks to reform drug enforcement laws to take a more public health oriented approach to fighting drugs. (*)

In general, I agree with the new group’s stance. Nevertheless, it is critical for the well-being and sanity of society that these reform efforts don’t go too far. We should continue to stigmatize illegal drug users with imprisonment. Decriminalization is not the right goal.

Despite the presence of drug legalizer Kurt Schmoke in the new Coalition’s leadership, the Coalition is not apparently desirous of decriminalization.

Another issue is the disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine and cocaine in powder form. The original justification for the disparity was that crack users are more dangerous to society than powder cocaine users. Powder cocaine users are much less likely than crack users to knife random passersby to rob them of a few dollars, for example.

Yet, it is right to look at the disparity with skepticism. Powder cocaine can be manufactured into crack cocaine. Furthermore, the greater prices of powder cocaine and hence greater illegal profits may in effect subsidize the cocaine cartels that also push crack.

Instead of reducing criminal sentences for crack cocaine possession, we should increase the criminal sentences for powder cocaine possession up to the level of crack-related sentences.

In certain, well-defined cases, however, drug treatment would benefit society more than imprisonment.

Drugs continue to plague large segments of our society, including numerous African-American families. Additionally, the terrorist Enemy is in league with some drug pusher networks.

The National African American Drug Policy Coalition should be commended for championing the public health approach, an approach that will prove critical if the evil reign of illegal drugs is ever to be decisively turned back.

The NTSB has found that the crash of Flight 587, involving an American Airlines jet over New York City in November 2001, was an accident. (*) The federal government’s transportation safety department found that the cause was one or both of a defective design of the Airbus aircraft or pilot error. (†)

I had been concerned that the crash of Flight 587 was not an accident. (‡) That concern is now laid to rest.

Al Jazeera released a heavily edited and abridged version of the latest videotape from Al Qaeda archvillain Osama Bin Laden. (*)

No other copy is available to the world.

In the tape, Bin Laden appears to mention “Kerry” in addition to Bush.

All other references could have been tape recorded in 2001. Bin Laden mentioned that four years had passed since the 9/11 atrocities, but of course he could have made that statement in 2001. The story about Bush reading a children’s story was circulating in the days immediately following Bin Laden’s mass murder. Bin Laden’s statement about Bush’s son dropping bombs on Iraq was read by an Al Jazeera reporter, and if Bin Laden did talk about it, the video of that has not been released.

It is highly unlikely but not impossible that the word “Kerry” was electronically edited by the producer of the video, or even mistranslated. The production quality of Al Qaeda video propaganda has increased significantly.

Some of the evidence now suggests Bin Laden is alive. If that is the truth, my earlier statement that he is dead would be inaccurate. (†)

Nevertheless, the evidence of Osama Bin Laden’s survival to this day is inconclusive.

Update: I found a copy of the full video in the original Arabic at the propaganda channel Al Jazeera. (‡ Windows Media video) In the video, Bin Laden clearly says “Kerry” and “Bush” at about the 5:10 mark. Furthermore, earlier in the video, he clearly says “Iraq.”

I no longer have any doubt that Bin Laden himself made the tape recently, and is alive today.

Terrorist mastermind Zarqawi has now openly declared his allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. (*)

Zarqawi is key to the link between Al Qaeda and terrorist activity in Iraq.

This revelation tremendously undermines the antiwar argument.

It also underscores the importance of everything our troops and allies are doing in Iraq. In Iraq, they fight the group that attacked us on 9/11.

We now know without doubt that we are currently fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. John Kerry should address this on the campaign trail. He should make it his policy that he will not withdraw troops from Iraq until we defeat Al Qaeda there, regardless of who our allies are.

I have long linked Zarqawi to Al Qaeda on this web log. Unfortunately, I was right.

Michael Reilly notes that in the third debate Kerry said at one point that his faith does not guide his politics, and at another criticized faith without works. (*)

(The linked article takes a pro-life stand. I am pro-choice on the grounds that a mother’s right to choose is high in importance.)

18 October 2004. Updated for clarity.

In the third debate, Bush said:

If you’re a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you’re equally an American. That’s the great thing about America, is the right to worship the way you see fit.…

In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty.

(*) There’s nothing controversial in that excerpt.

On the other hand, Kerry said:

Everything is a gift from the Almighty. And as I measure the words of the Bible — and we all do; different people measure different things — the Koran, the Torah, or, you know, Native Americans who gave me a blessing the other day had their own special sense of connectedness to a higher being.

This statement is totally at odds with Christian teaching that one can only come to know God through Jesus.

Furthermore, in Christian teaching, everything is not from God. Sin, for example, does not originate in God.

Kerry would be the first American President with this New Age religious sensibility.

A quick overview is in order of the heated discussion over John Kerry’s mentioning that VP Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian in the third debate. (*)

On gay issues, including marriage, the pro-gay rights side is now deeply committed to a very narrow rhetoric. All they say is that opposition to their opinion is offensive. They rarely make arguments anymore.

The conservative side on gay issues engages with both arguments and references to persons. They will make an argument that gay marriage will harm society for one reason or another, but then they will also call gay people names or attempt to deny their humanity.

My position is that reasoned arguments should carry the day. We should find neither taking offense nor name-calling persuasive.

To sum up the argument over Kerry’s reference to Mary Cheney, Kerry referenced her in order to make a deeply personal attack on Bush and hence to undermine Bush’s point, based as it was on a reasoned argument. The conservatives and Cheney family members who have taken offense at Kerry’s reference (†) have not relied on the fact of the reference’s complete irrelevance. Instead they have tried to flip Kerry’s personal attack on the Cheney family back on Kerry by calling Kerry’s tactic “tawdry,” and stating that Kerry is “not a good man.”

As Rodney King asked, can’t we all just get along?

On gay issues, let’s all attempt to rely on reason, logic, evidence, and argument, not personal commentary.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) is maintained by Congress to produce bipartisan reports. It is a valuable source of information. It has long ranged outside the area of accounting.

Recently, it renamed itself the Government Accountability Office (GAO). (*)

The new name is a mistake. Today our government is not as accountable as it should be. There is room for improvement. Yet, here is this office that boldly proclaims how government is accountable.

I suppose we will next see the renaming of the FCC to the Department of Truth and the Department of Defense to the Department of Love.

Congress should reverse this Orwellian name change.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, MD:

After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word “plan” 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry’s pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan — nay, a promise — to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.

I’m not making this up. I couldn’t. This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.'’

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery.…

(*) It would be hard to overestimate the dishonesty, irresponsibility, or recklessness of John Edwards’s statement.

One daydreams about a Kerry-Gephardt ticket.

Krauthammer further points out that contrary to statements in the presidential debates, there is no current “ban” on stem cell research, only a restriction on federal spending. On the other hand, it would be best to ban the embryonic sort of stem cell research and allow the rest.

A recent poll showed only two countries out of the dozen or so surveyed support Bush over Kerry. (*)

The only two countries surveyed supporting Bush are Israel and Russia. Israel has endured countless bloody attacks. Russia recently suffered the Beslan schoolchildren massacre. Here in the USA, we had the 9/11 attacks.

The Guardian says the reason for the Kerry preference is the “strong personal antipathy” worldwide against Bush.

If Kerry were to follow his campaign promise, however, and fight the Global War on Terrorism as vigorously as Bush and yet more competently than Bush, there is little reason to think international opinion would continue to support Kerry in such large numbers.

What is more likely is that Kerry does not plan to fight the war as vigorously as has Bush, and that people around the globe have forecast that and understand that, even as Kerry vocally promises the opposite.

Even now, after the tragic death of a true man of steel, an inspiring figure to so many, Christopher Reeve, before he is even buried, advocates of stem cell research use his memory to push their agenda. I would have much preferred to have waited for a longer period for public grieving before posting this, but in light of the tactics of unethical research advocates, I cannot remain silent.

This is an excerpt from the October 2004 Reader’s Digest interview with Reeve, conducted months ago: (*)

RD: What’s your position on embryonic stem cell research?
Reeve: I advocate it because I think scientists should be free to pursue every possible avenue. It appears though, at the moment, that embryonic stem cells are effective in treating acute injuries and are not able to do much about chronic injuries.

Of course, Reeve’s permanent spinal injury was a chronic injury.

Should scientists be free to explore every avenue, like Reeve said? Of course not. Doctor Mengele’s experiments on live human beings, for example, were beyond reproach. Science must be ethical.

The ethical problems of embryonic stem cell research are certain. As for the benefits, we know the research will not help quadriplegics like Christopher Reeve, even though advocates use his story as the main reason for doing it. Furthermore, with adult stem cell research (non-embryonic) we avoid the ethical problems and pursue a far more promising avenue of research.

Remember this: both you and I and every other human being was once a small clump of stem cells. At one time stem cells made up 100% of every human being. This research would treat our precious human beginnings in the same way we treat lab rats.

The MSNBC “After Hours” program following the debates is the best cable news show on the election.

Here’s part of the transcript after the Vice-Presidential debate. (*)

Ron Reagan starts it off:

REAGAN: And now a critical exchange in tonight’s battle took place when John Edwards compared this Bush administrations record of building an alliance for Iraq against the president’s father’s record in the Gulf War. That triggered a harsh response from Vice President Cheney. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You demean the sacrifice of our allies and you say it’s wrong war, wrong place, wrong time and oh, by the way send troops. Makes no sense at all. It’s totally inconsistent. There isn’t a plan there. Our most important ally in the war on terror in Iraq specifically is Prime Minister Allawi.

He came recently and addressed a joint session of Congress that I presided over with the Speaker of the House and John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with where he came and he thanked America for our contributions and our sacrifice and pledged to hold those elections in January. Went out and demeaned him, criticized him, challenged his credibility.

That is not the way to win friends and allies. You’re never going to add to the coalition with that kind of attitude.

GWEN IFILL, MODERATOR: Senator Edwards, 30 seconds.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. The vice president suggests that we have the same number of countries involved now that we had in the first Gulf War. First Gulf War cost the American people $5 billion.

And regardless of what the Vice President says, we’re at $200 billion and counting. Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr. Vice President, the coalition casualties are American casualties. Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being born by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this administration.

INFILL: Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Classic example. He won’t count the sacrifice and the contribution of our Iraqi allies. It’s their country, they’re in the fight, they’re increasingly the ones out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They’re doing a superb job and for you to demean their sacrifice it strikes me as…

EDWARDS: Oh I’m not demeaning…

CHENEY: It is indeed–you suggest that somehow it shouldn’t count because you want to be able to say that the Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this effort if you’re not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis are increasingly making to their own future.

We’ll win when they take on responsibility for governance which they’re doing and when they take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly are doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle who got the better end of that exchange?

MIKE BARNICLE, THE BOSTON HERALD: I think the Vice President.

SCARBOROUGH: Why is that?

BARNICLE: I just think people look at him no matter whether they like him or not, no matter whether they think he’s so filled with doom and gloom most of the time that, you know, he’s a serious fellow and–not that John Edwards isn’t a serious fellow–but the contrast between the two, I think, goes to the Vice President.

SCARBOROUGH: How–you know, I always said, you know, that Bill Clinton could have never gotten elected in 1988 when there was a Soviet Union in 1992 — all of a sudden; he was acceptable to the American people.

Are we looking at people like Dick Cheney in 2001, you know, after September 11, 2001 saying you know what, he may not be the smoothest guy in the world, he may scare little kids and puppy dogs–at the same time we’re in a war, we want somebody tough and competent like that?

HOWARD FINEMAN, NEWSWEEK: We want somebody who scares people but the other point is that if the Kerry-Edwards theory doesn’t hold up because they’re not saying they want to get out of Iraq.

They’re saying the war was wrongly begun but they want to finish it. They needed to have said good things about Allawi if they’re being honest about what they believe because Allawi is trying, we have to think, to install some kind of more democratic government there.

The problem with Kerry-Edwards is that they’re not speaking up for freedom around the world, which they need to do to try to get to high ground in the debate.

If they don’t do that then Dick Cheney is going to say, look, it’s messy–yes we made some mistakes but we’re still on basically the right course and it’s that fundamental part of that that Kerry-Edwards can’t challenge because they’re basically saying we want to say–heck they’re saying we want to go into Fallujah.

SCARBOROUGH: We’re going to stay there but we’re not necessarily going to support the Iraqi prime minister when he comes over and speaks to a joint session of Congress.

FINEMAN: That doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make any sense unless you’re going to dismiss that whole thing as a corrupt exercise over there, which they’re not–the Democrats are not quite willing to do.

There is no Kerry-Edwards foreign policy vision other than excessive pragmatism. That is a statement about the impoverished state of contemporary progressive political thought.

Christopher Hitchens gives account of his political journey from the Left to independent neoconservative-like thinker. (*)

He is one of the most interesting political figures of our time.

The London Telegraph covers the tip of the iceberg in the ongoing dispute over the US intelligence community and its alleged incompetence. The old guard in intelligence does not like neoconservative global strategy. (*)