Enough. Here's Your Hat, There's The Door, U.N.

I don't know about you, but I've just about had it with the UN. Every dealing we've had with them since the 1950s has been pretty doggoned miserable -- from getting into their "police action" in Korea through Kruschev's shoe banging to their constant, harpy criticism. UN delegates have been a headache for the new York City police for decades. Those people deserve kudos for putting up with their arrogance.

So I'm not ready to support funding an new UN building in New York. In fact, I'm ready to show them the door.

Just when you think taxpayers have been soaked enough, another ridiculous idea comes from Washington. Now they are talking about sticking the taxpayers with a loan or a loan guarantee for the United Nations to build a new headquarters for a cool $1.3 billion.

Most Americans would rather kick them out! And that is exactly what our organization, Move America Forward, is trying to do. We are tired of paying for their constant failures, corruption and anti-American attitudes – all of it expensive, I might add.

The United Nations has its hand out, seeking a complete renovation and expansion of its facilities in New York City, and they want the United States to provide the loan or loan guarantee to pay for it all.

Worse yet, the only debate in Washington seems to be whether the loan has a low interest rate or NO INTEREST at all!

The UN’s current facilities are crumbling and in violation of building, health and safety codes. If it were a private business, it would have been closed long ago. Someone recently proposed turning the building over to Donald Trump – he would turn it into moneymaking condos in no time.

So, the UN needs a new building. But who says it must be built here in the U.S.? And as more details continue to surface about UN officials involved in the “Oil for Arms” corruption, why would any American want to host these offices here when the UN has become one of the safest havens for terrorists?

The timing is perfect to tell the UN that America’s run as host nation to this corrupt institution has come to an end, and they can build their new palace in some other nation. The Sudan and Kosovo come to mind as two splendid places where UN officials can directly confront the world’s struggles they are charged with addressing. In New York, they are most known for not paying their parking tickets!

In this post 9/11 world, the most fundamental international challenge is confronting the forces of terrorism, yet the United Nations has been a miserable failure on this front. A new report by the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change admits numerous failures by the UN to take effective measures to defeat terrorism.

For more of this piece, go to Melanie Morgan's articleIt's Time to DeFund the UN.

First Hand View of Tsunami

Blue Water Rallies is an organization of cruising sailors and their families and friends who enjoy taking their yachts in waters around the world for the sheer pleasure of sailing. Their website, yachtrallies.co.uk publishes stories of their adventures online. The Blue Water World Rally 2003-2205 began in Gibralta on Oct. 3 and the schedule took members westward to Antigua, Panama,Galapagos, Tahiti, Fiji, Darwin, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand around Dec 4, reaching Sri Lanka Jan.5.

What follows is the story of one of those yacht crews, the Ed Muensch family:

Tsunami At Phi Phi Don
Twelve Rally boats gathered at Phi Phi Don Island positioned fifteen miles off Phuket, Thailand to celebrate Christmas day together. On the morning of December 26th Helen and I awoke and decided to go to the island for breakfast, leaving our grandson Michael sleeping aboard Tahlequah. It’s important to explain Phi Phi Don is a small island with a beautiful beach on the north side and the South side having many open restaurants, numerous shops, several luxury hotels catering to the hundreds and hundreds of tourists visiting each day. It’s the perfect picturesque island vacation get away, world famous as a popular Thailand vacation area. Each side of the island is connected by a narrow walkway.

Strolling the boardwalk we favored a small bakery with tables, enjoying breakfast together. This day I saw many small children in carriages, babies in back slings, and the usual teenagers and families on Phi Phi Don. I took special note of peoples faces and accents giving special attention to Americans. Ferries were arriving with hundreds of tourists emerging to enjoy Phi Phi Don for a days visit. Following breakfast we made a last minute decision to stop at one of many Internet cafes to respond to e-mails from family and friends. In each e-mail we stated, “Wish you were here”.

At approximately 10:45 we returned to the south beach to collect our inflatable and return to Tahlequah. Arriving at the beach we were stunned to discover little water left in the anchorage, a phenomenon we were not use too. Helen remarked she thought Tahlequah might be on sand, I added this was impossible as we were anchored in 40 feet of water a short time before. We began dragging our inflatable through the sand to reach water in the distance. I saw rental powerboats and Long Tails (Thai Canoes) racing toward us skidding frantically but unable to make progress because of the sand. I commented to Helen how people abuse boats and how furious it made me. The skippers of the Thai Canoes motioned us back and began jumping from their canoes to anchor them in the sand.

Looking into the distance I saw a small foam line on the horizon moving toward us. Helen & I agreed to abandon the dinghy and run back to the island beach for safety. Running I continued to look behind to see the wave gaining distance at an un-believeable rate. Seconds later I turned again to see the wave hit a rental power boat, it broke apart as it fell in the surf. I realized it was useless to run, I told Helen to stop and I bear hugged her. I remember saying to myself, I’m going to forget I have to concentrate on hugging her; I can’t release her no matter what.

We saw a boiling froth of sea coming at us with an increasing loud swishing noise; it seemed to go on forever. Foolishly I dug my feet into the sand hoping to withstand the wave. As it hit I felt us smacked to the sand instantly, as we hugged I could feel us tumbling like toy dolls head over heals along the bottom. The pressure and force of the water prevented us from surfacing. As my hands were ripped from embracing Helen we both surfaced against two palm trees held there by ferocious current. Helen was in shock, staring towards the ocean motionless. I held her repeating again and again, “It’s over, it’s over, we survived, you’ll be ok.

At that exact moment we were hit by a much larger wave. I felt the palm trees give way and again we tumbled together along the bottom rolling over the island. I continued to focus on not releasing Helen. I kept thinking we’re going to hit something; we have to and waited for that moment. We continued tumbling seemingly forever, I was running out of air and knew I had to make it to the surface. Forcing us to the top I had time to gulp a quick breath before being forced down again. When surfacing I saw I was passing through the palm trees on the south side of the island and knew we were now going out to sea. Desperate, I had to make it to the surface again and made a final effort to reach the top.

I tried to surface but couldn’t because of debris everywhere. I lost grasp of Helen a second time. My hand grabbed a floating cushion, pulling myself to the surface only to be forced below again and again. Swallowing water I knew the end was nearand felt death all around me. I remember feeling a sense of peace I had never felt before; everything seemed to go into slow motion, quiet and very peaceful. I recall saying to myself, “I wonder how long it takes to drown” and “I wonder if it will be quick?” “It’s over now I thought and it’s ok”.

My hand seemed to touch something ridged, it was a pipe. Grasping it I pulled myself to the surface and saw Helens head below. Grabbing her neck I raised her above the water for air. She was unconscious, pure white and just staring expressionless. Slapping her face I kept screaming “keep breathing, keep breathing, we can make it” over and over again. I suddenly realized I had grabbed the long propeller shaft of a Long Tail Thai canoe. Helen slipped and began to sink below the water expressionless, her face seemed resigned and to say I’ve had enough let me go. Grabbing her chin I raised her again planting her chin into the metal framework of the adjacent upturned boat. There was a man standing in the boat staring outwards, I screamed to him to help Helen into the boat. Looking he seemed unable to move and continued staring. Attempting to raise myself into the canoe I continued screaming at him demanding he help raise Helen. Suddenly he reached out grabbing Helens hand helping to raise her into the boat. Although lifeless I knew she continued shallow breathing.

With all my strength I pulled myself into the canoe next to Helen. She layed over whispering to me she couldn’t breathe and had awful pain in her chest. I continued to scream “keep breathing, you made it and everything would be ok”, all she had to do was continue breathing. Twenty feet away I saw a man raising a young naked woman into the canoe, I knew she was dead, drowned people were everywhere floating past us. Looking towards the island I couldn’t believe the destruction, all the hotels had collapsed and were sliding into the sea.

I saw two large wooden upturned fishing boats moving towards us caused by the rushing waters. Fearing if we didn’t move quickly we’d be crushed and got the captain to start the engine to move to a safer area and into deeper water clear of the wreckage. Continuing to hold Helen in my arms comforting her I began to hear pleas for help coming from the water. People were clinging to whatever they could with what little remaining strength they had. One woman begged me to help her and grabbed a board to stretch it towards me in an effort to reach us. Reaching out I realized it wasn’t long enough and gave up. Looking down into the water I knew the only way of helping her was to jump back into the water but feared I didn’t have the strength left to get back into the canoe a second time. Afraid of loosing Helen my hands were frozen cradling her in my arms. I kept screaming to the woman it was over, just hang on, it will be ok, your safe now but I knew she wasn’t. A young man suddenly grabbed the side of our boat trying to pull himself up. He begged for my help, I told him he had to pull himself up. Some time later the Captain placed a ladder over the side for him to climb up, he tried but didn’t have the strength. He continued pleading, I continued saying he had to find the strength to get in, my body couldn’t move, . I saw the captain finally move toward him but couldn’t lift him alone. Putting Helen down I helped bring him aboard. The Captain then found a rope to throw the woman nearby a line and dragged her aboard. I insisted the Captain had to move or we’d be crushed in minutes. Starting the engine he managed to run it. Moving away slowly I turned to hear the screams of people begging for help. I was so afraid if I stopped to help them I would loose Helen forever. I want to say all the strength in my body was gone but it wan’t, I had to save Helen with what I had left and wouldn’t leave her.

I knew Helen couldn’t last long without oxygen as her lungs were filled with water and because of her pain didn’t know if ribs punctured a lung. Motoring towards the fifteen remaining long tails the screams faded as we distanced outselves. Other long tales were moving with us, every captain standing silently and motionless staring at the island waiting for the next wave. There was total silence; no words were spoken between the boats. Everyone appeared in shock and could only stare ignoring the screams coming from the water. I asked the captain if he was ok, looking at me responding faintly he lost his niece on the beach. Looking seaward I saw a wooden square-rigger racing towards the island. I told him we had to reach that ship and get Helen aboard for her to make it. Leaving the safety of the other long tails he motored towards the square-rigger. As we approached midship I yelled to the Swedish Captain my wife needed to get to a hospital. He responded “my ship is your ship, where do we take her?” His crew immediately helped lift Helen aboard and lay her on the deck.

I requested oxygen and he responded he had a tank; unfortunately it didn’t have enough to make the 4-hour trip to Phuket. I used his radio to call the Rally fleet in the North Bay. They informed me Tahlequah was safe; most boats had broken anchor and were headed to deeper water bracing for the next wave. I was told Michael our screw had a bad gash in his arm and needed medical attention. Our boat raced towards the north bay while a couple from another boat “Regardless” raced toward us with oxygen and medical supplies. The woman was a nurse, gave us both injections for pain and administered the oxygen. They returned to their yacht to brace for the next wave. Another Rally boat brought Michael with a bandaged arm with Jesse (a paramedic from “Gaultine 2”) to travel with us to Phuket.

We raced towards a major port in Phuket only to be informed by the Rally boat “Aragorn” it sustained major damage. The Captain suggested going north until we found suitable anchorage. Three hours later we transferred Helen to a Hotel atop a hill and were immediately transported to the Phukett International Hospital. Upon arrival we were met by a gurney and were rushed into the emergency room. Paperwork was put aside; they wanted to know only the patients name and injury. Within minutes x rays indicated her lungs were filled with water but no broken bones or organ damage. I was warned by the doctor the body would slowly absorb the water but there was a high risk of serious pneumonia. She would have to be transferred to a private room for the night, then to the ICU Unit.

The following day Helen appeared worse, with more chest pain and pneumonia. The x-rays indicated her lungs were continuing to fill with fluid. Anti-biotics and painkillers were administered every few hours and within two additional days the infection was under control and Helen was transferred back to a private room. Each day she continues to improve and has been informed she will be discharged after a week in the hospital assuming all continues to progress well.

The faces and screams of the people I left behind in Phi Phi Don Bay continue to haunt me. I can never forget their screams and begging for my help and my turning away from them. I find myself walking the crowded hospital corridors among camera crews looking for people I might recognize from that day, their never here and will never know what happened to them. Riding to the hospital one morning with people from the Blue Water Rally we made an unexpected stop at the University for a medical student to volunteer. They informed me the University was providing counseling for victims of the tragedy. After sitting in the car for five minutes I said I had to stay and walked into the building. I saw people sleeping on the floor, blankets and pillows everywhere. Along the wall sat several people interviewing victims for counseling appointments. Limping to the table I said I needed to talk to someone about what happened and was provided a counselor within minutes.

A woman named Vicki brought me to a private office closed the door and sat directly in front of me. I described what happened and said I wanted one person to listen to what really happened. It was the hardest truth I’ve ever shared about myself. As I began to describe the people I abandoned I could still see their faces and hear their cries for help. I didn’t want to hear explanations, or forgiveness; I only wanted one person to know what really happened that day. I wanted Helen & I to survive the Tsunami but I could never anticipate the cost of our survival. Life suddenly seems so different my drive for pushing life to extreme challenges is numb and how I regard myself different. It was a day that changed many lives. A day later I told my dear friend Ivor from Safari about what happened that day, he responded compassionately he would have felt as I blaming himself. Knowing the only people who could forgive me were the people who died Ivor’s simple words helped me without lessening the truth of what really happened that day.

Talking to Helen about what to do next she stated she wanted to continue with the Blue Water Rally when healed. Another skipper volunteered to skipper our boat while his wife skippered his boat. We’ve agreed to stay in an apartment in Phukett to fully recover then fly to the next Rally Port and rejoin Tahlequah flying to that location. The American Embassy representative seemed shocked when Helen informed him we would continue. Some Rally members assumed we would return home following this ordeal. Helen says we’ve done this for the last two years it has to be finished.

Blue Water Rally friends at Phi Phi Don that day are responsible for saving Helen’s life and saving Tahlequah. They endangered themselves in the face of more waves to bring oxygen, medical supplies, and assistance to keep Helen live and even accompany us back to Phuket International Hospital. These same people returned to the island that evening to assist those hurt in the face of the worst disaster of the century. I will never know the man who unselfishly helped pull Helen from the water in his own grief. I will never forget his face and good will that touches only the surface of the Thai people.

Ed Muesch, SV Tahlequah

There were about 10 rally yachts in the area when the tsunami hit and everyone survived, traumatized but alive. They ask everyone to send whatever aid they can to help the survivors.

Homerun Hero

A dear cousin who knows about our severely retarded son and Downs Syndrome grandson sent this story to me today. It warmed my heart...so I thought I would share it. I hope it's true:

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.

After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question. When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. "I believe, that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child." Then he told the following story: Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play.
The boy looked around for guidance and, getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Even though no hits came his way,he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now,with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.At this juncture, let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the
game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible 'cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly,much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved in a few steps
to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher took the ball and turned and threw the ball on a high arc to right field, far beyond the reach of the first baseman.

Everyone started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline,wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" By the time Shay rounded first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran toward second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases toward home. Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming,"Shay, run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the Hero who hit the "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world."

Should we do less?
It's easy to see the tragedy of the tsunami victims; but not so easy to see the need next door. Let's don't forget to give freely whereever there is want.

This KC Star Column is the Pitts

In today's Kansas City Star, in the "As I See It" column, Daryl Pitts of Lenexa, Kansas gives his take on the election. The tone of the piece is sarcastic and to me it came off as typical Democrat patronism.

He begins by defining himself as a liberal Democrat who, in the midst of his self-pity over the election loss, decides that the outcome was, after all, "really a sweet deal for me." He decides to "jump on the bandwagon" because "Dubya and his band of like-thinkers" are looking out for him.

"Forty-six-year-old, upper-middle-class, straight, Christian, white guys have it made," he writes."This is such a good deal for me I am kicking myself for not going to the dark side sooner. No more affirmative action? Sure, why not?"

Okay, let's pause here. Affirmative action is racial profiling; think about it. You know how liberals yell about racial profiling. So racial profiling is all right as long as it works FOR liberal programs but if it's needed to protect American citizens from terrorist attacks, it's not all right. Pitts says, in sarcasm but actually expressing what liberals really believe: "Even if there is a little favoritism in our culture, I'm fine with it as long as I'm the one who comes out of top." (That's a perfect expression of the way liberal Democrats act -- for example, recounting elections until they win.) Well, I say both are wrong, according to the Declaration of Independence. It says all are equal.

Then Pitts writes,"No one in my family is even in the military, much less at risk in Iraq, or wherever the next invasion will occur. No worries for me here, just keep the killing out of the USA. There are plenty of other places that need to be Halliburtonized -- I mean democratized."

Well, Pitts, I DO have family in the military, some in Iraq. It's terribly worrisome, especially since our grandson will most probably go to Iraq right after his graduation from West Point. Our son-in-law has been there and a cousin is there now. We pray a lot.

I believe that President Bush is right. Ridding the world of terrorists while attempting to establish democracy in the Middle East makes future generations safer. Also, Kerry had no war plan. Since he was instrumental in dishonorably ending the Viet Nam war and leaving thousands to suffer at the hands of the North Vietnamese, he’s not trustworthy.

As for Halliburton -- why didn't liberal Democrats object to sending Halliburton to the Middle East during the Clinton administration? That experience made them the only company with the knowledge, experience and expertise to do the job now. And that's why they got the job.

"My wife and I have excellent jobs with generous benefits, so bring on the tax cuts and forget medical care for all." My husband and I are retired. Social security is important to us. The last tax cut helped but medical costs are a strain. However, we have seen socialized medicine in England, Sweden and Germany. It may benefit us in the short run, but it will punish our grandchildren in the long run, so we oppose nationalized health. Pitts implies that we're selfish because we voted for President Bush. I don't think so -- we voted not for things that would benefit us personally but for what is best for the country. That, after all, is the only valid way to vote to keep a republic/democratic form of government healthy.

"My parents have built a healthy nest egg, so I say 'Just say no' to inheritance taxes. I like to think of it as family welfare instead of government welfare, which, unlike government welfare, does not create slothfulness." Our parents didn't believe in leaving us money; they wanted us to make our own lives. So this issue isn't one that concerns me except that the tax is unreasonable, unfair and double taxation. I'm also not sure that government welfare creates slothfulness but I am sure that it creates painfully high taxes. That's never bothered Democrats, though. They know how to use the loopholes, like Kerry.

President Bush's administration has done a lot to help low income families own their own homes. Our middle-aged son is severely retarded and autistic. His disability income is very low but thanks to a Republican housing program, he recently bought an affordable, comfortable house on a half acre of land. The American Dream is his.

"My youngest daughter will graduate from one of those godforsaken, prayer-inhibited public schools here in the Spring," he writes,"so I don't give a rip if every child is left behind after the one I love graduates."
Never mind that liberal Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy co-authored the No Child Left Behind Act and supports it. Our grandchildren go to a public school. They say the Lord’s Prayer and pledge allegiance to the flag, including the phrase “Under God,” every morning because parents insisted. The Constitutional separation of church and state was meant to operate as a one-way street – the state could not set up a church (like the Church of England) and require citizens to subscribe.

Pitts' patronizing snideness continues, "I hope Bush will be able to appoint enough Supreme Court justices to make us a Christian nation again. You know, freedom to worship in the Christian church of your choice." I don't know where he grew up but where I did, in Tennessee, there were Jewish temples and Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches and now that there are Muslims who have made America their home, there are Mosques. That's the America that President Bush encourages, not the godless world of the liberal Democrat, which we've seen enough of in the past 8 years.

Pitt ends his column with this paragraph: "Now some of you liberal Demon-crats and wish-washy flipfloppers might say I have become selfish. To you I say, come on over to the winning team!" That little witticism reminds me of a saying back home:"Tryin' to but can't." It's obvious that Democrats care only about winning. Voting in the interest of the future of the country to the detriment of one's own interests is a concept that seems foreign to the likes of Mr. Pitts. But it is the only way to keep the system working for the good of all.

Look at the way Democrats operate: The Clinton administration believed that if you tell a lie often enough, everyone will believe it. Democrats have been doing that ever since. They are patronizing toward their opposition – Pitts cutesy little sarcastic column is a good example of that. He will call my response "dumb" if he sees it, without knowing my IQ or the level of my education. To him I say, saying doesn't make it so.

Democrats been stealing elections from Texas in 1948 to Chicago in 1960. Now they want to count votes until they win. They are so proficient at cheating that they are quick to accuse Republicans of it. In 2004 the only two election officers who have been indicted for fraud are Democrats, and the only recount election they’ve “won,” they did so with “found” votes.

My husband and I have painful memories of campaign headquarters we alone financed being destroyed. We rebuilt. We have lost elections -- some pretty close ones -- but until the example was set for us in 2000 it never occurred to us to challenge the vote. They say the thief is the first to accuse others of stealing and the liar is the one who quickly assumes others are lying.

If JPitt thought he was changing to the selfish side, he doesn't understand Republican conservatives. But that's pretty clear, isn't it? His column is, indeed, the Pitts.

History and Hope in a World of Terrorism

I belong to a Jewish list and a Palestinian one in addition to many other political subscriptions. Since I have no faith in media reports I prefer to find original sources and check facts for myself. The following I found on the Jewish list and it speaks to -- and for -- Americans as much as anyone.

A Message to Europe

[A speech delivered to a visiting delegation of European parliamentarians in Jerusalem, 12 December 2004)

By Arnold Roth

The world is divided into two camps. On one side are those people who see terrorism as a warning of danger ahead. Unless something is done, they say, a catastrophe may happen. On the other side are those people whose lives have been turned upside down, never to be the same again, because terrorism has struck them, has fallen on top of them, has brought catastrophe right into their lives.

I want to spend a few minutes looking at the differences between these two camps, and to suggest some reasons why each camp seems to find it so hard to understand the other.

By what right do I speak? I am a professional person, a man in his fifties, educated, informed, with respectable qualifications. Still, I hold no academic position and no public office. I harbour absolutely no political ambitions and I take no part in public debate. Of the different ways there are to define me, the one I prefer - the one which best represents who I am and what I do - is that I am a husband and a father.

I brought my family to Israel in 1988 not because Australia was a miserable place and not because my wife and I were unable to earn a living. The opposite is true. We came to Israel despite the comfort and pleasure of life in Melbourne. There, we earned a good living, lived in a lovely home, had friends, felt safe and were safe. We moved to Israel to raise our children here because this is the historic home of the Jewish people, the right place for Jews to be. Our parents and grandparents and great-great-great grandparents dreamed of doing this but were not able. We were able, and therefore we did it.

Everything in our lives changed forever when Malki, our middle child, a delightful fifteen year old girl with a constant smile on her beautiful face, was killed on 9th August 2001. Malki died like more than one thousand other Israelis in the last four years - innocent and unprepared. She was not caught in the crossfire of some battle.
She was not a bystander. She was murdered with fourteen other Israelis in a restaurant in the middle of the day, in the middle of this city. The women and children in that pizza restaurant on a hot school-holiday afternoon were the actual target. The terrorists who planned the massacre took their orders from a pediatrician and from a minister of religion in a wheelchair. They picked their target with exquisite care. The bomber was the son of a land-owning wealthy family. The other gang members were mainly university-educated and well-traveled. To call them 'desperate', as many journalists have done, is to completely twist the meaning of the word 'desperate'.

On the day that the joy of life was turned into ashes for my family and me, men and women in villages close to where we are now sitting danced in the streets and distributed candies to their children. We have the pictures.

I said a few moments ago that I take no part in public debate, but this is not true any longer. My daughter's murder and the confusion and ignorance which we have seen around us compelled my wife and me to find our voice, and to speak and to write at every opportunity. We used to be the most private of people. Now we feel an urgent need to speak out. We try to shape abstract ideas for people so they can understand them. We try to give expression to the agony and the misery of the desperatefamilies around us - the Israeli families, desperate... for peace.

If, like me, you are ready to sit down and listen to Israeli families who have experienced murder at the hands of the barbarians, I can tell you what you will hear. Like almost every Israeli I have ever met, terror victim families want to see the Palestinian Arabs live productive lives, travel in safety, obtain a good education for their children, make money, receive good medical care. The miserable reality of their daily lives is far from what we wish them - and this brings absolutely no happiness or comfort to our side. The opposite is true. The struggle between them and us which is asymmetrical in so many respects is asymmetrical on this point too. If only they would feel protective of their achievements, if only they felt they have something to lose, if only they could experience the pride of a
Palestinian Arab winner of a Nobel Prize for physics or literature...

Forty years of a corrupt and incompetent regime has assured that there is almost nothing of worth which they can lose.

Instead, we Israelis today are obliged to cope with the actual day-to-day legacy of the Arafat regime and its kleptocratic leaders: the dozens of crooked men who have grown wealthy on the back of their people's misery; the teachers of religion who have hijacked a noble faith and turned it into a tragic parody; the teenage boys and girls, raised on a diet of racist hatred and on the glorification of violence and self-destruction.

In 1977 the great political analyst Walter Laqueur wrote this: "The disputes about a detailed, comprehensive definition of terrorism will continue for a long time, they will not result in a consensus and they will make no notable contribution towards the understanding of terrorism."

He was absolutely right. The United Nations via its many agencies has still not found the way to agree on a definition of terror. But terrorism, like pornography with which it shares some characteristics, is hard to define but not so hard to recognize when you meet it.

The hatred and the barbarism of the terrorists are not a component of the political struggle between Israelis and Arabs. They are outside politics, beyond it and largely unconnected to it. Terrorism is absolute evil. Unless it is stopped by necessary and sufficient force, it will neither evaporate nor crumble. It will grow, and change form, and expand and spread. It cannot be appeased, and it must not be understood. We suffer from a grotesque surplus of understanding, whose price is human lives. A force which can take deliberate aim at an infant's head and shoot, a force which can plant a bomb in a pizza restaurant, or in a railway station, on a passenger jet or in a kindergarten, is a force from Hell.

I was raised by parents who knew about Hell. My father, who died before Malki was born, grew up in the Auschwitz death camp. My mother lives in quiet retirement in Australia today, but she was there too. A month after her fifteenth birthday, my mother's little Polish town was over-run by Nazi forces and her father, my grandfather, was arrested for the usual crime of being Jewish. Before he could be
taken away, my mother threw herself at the feet of a German soldier and screamed for mercy. Somehow this worked, her father was released and the family remained together for several more months. My grandparents, like the grandparents of all of the friends I grew up with, were eventually murdered. My parents, like all of the Jewish
refugees who came to Australia after the second world war, came with nothing - no parents, no property, no education. But they brought with them a powerful sense of history - of their own history, and of the history of the Jewish people. They established schools, synagogues, social welfare agencies, sports clubs. They created a new life. They found within themselves resources of love and mutual concern and support.

Although the shape of their lives was marked by their experience as Holocaust survivors, hatred was unknown in the life they made for me and for my generation. They simply had no time for hating - they were busy building a future for themselves, their children and their community. This success, I believe, was their revenge over the Nazis.

I mentioned the experience of my mother when she was fifteen. In 1967, I was fifteen. I remember watching my parents and their friends as they grew deeply apprehensive about Gamal Abdel Nasser and his open threat to throw all the Jews of Israel into the sea and destroy the young Jewish state. For the first time in my life, I could see that there were people ready to annihilate the Jews. And I could see there were others like U Thant, the then-secretary general of the United Nations, who might have blocked Nasser's aggression but chose not to. Arafat was already in the picture, by the way - he had become the head of the PLO in 1964 when the number of Israeli occupied settlements and Israeli army checkpoints was, of course, zero. All of this made a deep impression on me. Then war erupted, a Six Day War as it turned out, and Israel was saved. For me, the distance between Jerusalem and Melbourne grew very small from that moment onwards.

Most of us in this room are parents. We know that fifteen is a young age. At fifteen we have some of our basic ideas, and the general shape of our personality is in place. But we still have a lot of growing up to do. Malki, my daughter, will never reach her sixteenth birthday. We honour her memory by a fund called the Malki Foundation. Like Malki herself, the foundation gives support to families who are caring at home for a severely disabled child. Our foundation has already managed to support hundreds of such families - Druze, Christian, Moslem, Jewish. Like my daughter, this work has no political character. Its goal is to add some light, some happiness to the lives of ordinary people facing an extraordinary challenge.

I had the great privilege of speaking to the first MedBridge group in Jerusalem a year ago. I introduced myself to the 170 distinguished politicians and parliamentarians as someone who is not at all involved in the political process - in fact, as someone who tries to keep himself and his family as far away as possible from politics and from politicians. Please excuse my bluntness. I am not among those
who seek truth from politicians, because I prefer to get my disappointments elsewhere.

I spoke then about how life can look very different depending on whether you are sitting on your sofa watching the television news, or standing on the other side - living the news. The three years that have passed since my daughter died at the hands of terrorists have taught me how different those two experiences are - how little information is given by the news media about the victims of terrorism. The frustration, the loneliness, the pain.

In the year since the first MedBridge group came to Jerusalem, I have met dozens of journalists and my understanding of how they do their work has gotten a little deeper and wider. The questions I had then, I still have. I have some additional questions. I'm puzzled by how a reporter from a serious newspaper or a journalist from an important television station can arrive at Ben Gurion Airport and know almost nothing about the history of the Israeli and Arab sides in this terribly long conflict. I have been asked questions where it's clear to me the person holding the microphone has almost no ability to understand the context of the events bring reported. Context is an important thing. Without it, almost nothing makes sense.

There are many other things about the work of journalists, film editors and other media professionals which completely baffle me. In fact, it was not clear to me how large are the questions that informed people have about the media until I found myself part of the news.

Earlier this year, three friends and I went to a conference in Europe. This was the first ever conference of victims of terror. Hundreds of people were in the hall when we arrived - representing the host country, other European countries, the United States, Latin America, North Africa. Some weeks earlier, the organizers notified us that citizens of Israel would be free to take part in this conference provided that we paid the admission fee and sat quietly in the audience. But as Israelis, we would not be permitted to speak from the platform, and no steps would be taken to give official recognition to an Israeli contingent in the conference. In simple
words, the message was "please don't come". So of course we came.

A few minutes before the start of the conference, one of the officials in the government of that country, a friend of Israel, approached me and asked if I would be willing to speak in the opening panel. Though I was unprepared, I said "of course" and that's when I learned that there were sitting in that hall, at that exact moment, in the conference of victims of terror, three special guests - the
ambassadors of Syria, Iran and Palestine. But the organizers did not want an official Israeli presence. The story is long, but I will make it short. From the panel, I spoke about the personal experience of victims of terror and it was immediately clear that many of the widows and orphans in that audience knew exactly what I was describing. Hundreds of people spoke with my three Israeli friends and me, all of us wearing small Israeli flag badges on our clothing. At the end of the conference, we met by chance with some officials of the foreign ministry of the host country, and in our polite Israeli fashion, we explained how really upsetting it was for us to know that they intended for us to be persona non grata in the conference and despite this, we found tremendous solidarity from among the participants.

The response was - please come to our foreign ministry tomorrow and we will have a conversation. So we did, and in this way we met some of the top officials of the foreign ministry including the deputy minister. This senior group explained to us that while there is authentic terrorism in Europe, in the United States, in Latin
America, we in Israel must recognize that ours is actually a political conflict, and the solution must be a political solution. One of my Israeli friends objected to this, and expressed some strong personal words, not so politically correct, about the broad threat to Europe of radical Islam. My impression is that his comments were
brushed aside or not heard. Three weeks later, most of the people with whom we met in that foreign ministry were out of a job. Madrid, the capital of Spain and the host of our conference, discovered in the hardest possible way that terrorism can take many forms. I was invited back to a second Spanish conference which took place in June. This time, I was asked to speak as an Israeli. Many things had changed for the Spanish since March 11th.

Your mission, as MedBridge participants, as political leaders concerned to create a better world for the people of the Middle East, is a complicated one - and I wish you the greatest possible success. The mission of my wife and me, and hundreds of other Israeli families, as people who want to go on living after our child or
husband or wife or parent or brother or sister was murdered by terrorists, is also complicated. We want to look to the future, but we can only do this by understanding the present and learning from the past.

There is, as I am sure you already know, a well-developed sense of history among us Israelis. We turn to history when we want to understand who we are, where we belong, what we can expect from others. I mention this, in closing, because I want to share with you the extreme pain I - we - feel when we read about certain recent developments in European society.

Last week, a German survey of German-born Germans found that more than half think there is no difference between Israel's current treatment of the Palestinian Arabs and what the Nazis did to the Jews. 68 percent of Germans believe that Israel is waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinians. I could give you my theory
of how the media in Germany, in Europe and almost everywhere else contributes to ignorance of Israeli reality. I could tell you how journalists create, and at the same time are the result of, an almost total ignorance of what the Holocaust was. But if I did that, I would also have to point out to you that Germany happens to be one of the countries in Europe where they do make serious efforts to understand
the Holocaust and the truth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And yet they do not share our sense that Israel has been fighting one long defensive war of survival against an enemy that wants to ethnically cleanse Jews from their historic homeland for a century.

Also last week, the BBC published a survey showing that barely a third of young people in Britain have even heard the name Auschwitz and don't know what it is, where it is or what happened there.

I spoke of my experiences in Spain a few moments ago. A Spanish-born philosopher, George Santayana who died in the year I was born, wrote this: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I believe this statement carries with it a great deal of wisdom. My daughter does not belong to the past - at least, she doesn't when we sit together around the Sabbath table and enjoy one another's company in our family. We feel her presence. We feel her absence. We are determined to do whatever we can so that her memory will endure, that she will never become just another statistic.

As a family, as a society, we are in a perpetual struggle to remember the past, to hold a vision of a better future, and to do everything we can so that the fifteen year old children together with their goodness and their dreams - children on both sides of the sad conflict here in this land - can grow to productive adulthood, free
of the curse of hatred and of terror.

May your work be blessed.

Copyright (C) 2004 The Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org) and
Arnold Roth.

All of us -- all over the world -- are in this. We can grieve with those who have lost so much as we fight to bless this world with freedom or we can turn our backs and pretend "it can't happen here"...again. It's our choice.

The Blame Game: Media & Citizens Must Share Blame With Government

When I spoke out in defense of the soldier who asked the question of Sec'y Rumsfeld and remarked that many of our troops are and have been badly equipped during this war I came under strong criticism by my conservative friends who accused me of everything from not knowing what I was talking about to maliciously defaming the Secretary. Neither is true and I was pretty delighted to find this piece by Mark Shields. It stokes vague impressions into flames of actual memories.

In the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States, a nation of 132 million people with a gross domestic product of less than $100 billion, produced the following to win World War II:
296,429 aircraft,
102,351 tanks,
87,620 warships,
372,431 artillery pieces and
2,455,694 trucks.

Compare those heroic achievements to the current, dismal supply record as the U.S. war in Iraq is fast approaching its third year and the United States, now a nation of nearly 300 million with defense spending in excess of half a trillion dollars:

Only 5,910 of the 19,584 Humvees U.S. troops in Iraq today depend upon are protected with factory-installed armor;

8,002 of the 9,128 medium and heavyweight trucks transporting soldiers and supplies in that war zone are without armor.

Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are tonight living with an increased risk of death in Iraq.

All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase.

U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops Iraq "best equipped" is more than a counterfeit exaggeration, it is bilge, baloney.

An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and to deploy around the globe 2.5 million tanks in the same period of time that the incumbent American government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq.

The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a " mock" bomb -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire.

Nobody has been more persistent in holding the Pentagon and the White House accountable than maverick Mississippi Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

"When I visit Iraq," says Taylor, "I ride around in an armored vehicle, and I am sure the secretary (of defense) does, as well. That should be the single standard: If it is good enough for the big-shots, it is good enough for every American soldier."

The armor is truly a matter of life and death, as the Mississippi congressman explains: "Half of all our casualties, half of all our deaths and half of all our wounded are the direct result of improvised explosive devices [IEDs, or homemade bombs]." But when Washington officials visit Iraq, their traveling security includes not only heavily armored vehicles, but also radio-signal jammers, which can disable the IEDs.

What makes Taylor authentically angry is the inexcusable failure of the U.S. brass -- Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he names -- to provide radio jammers (which cost $10,000 each) to the fewer than 30,000 U.S. military vehicles in Iraq.

Okay. Let's hold up a minute. I remember those early days of WWII. There are similarities today: The President is saying just about the same things. The Secretary of Defense and the Defense Department are doing just about the same things. And the armed services are doing just as good a job -- even better, actually.

Now let's look at the differences. Maybe here is where we should look for the Blame Game: the press in WWII was immensely supportive. Newspapers initiated scrap drives and various community activities to support not only our troops but "The War Effort." The government came out with savings stamps and "war bonds" to raise money for defense and women went to work in plants to build war materials. Hollywood made movies romanticizing support for the war and everyone put their collective shoulders to the wheel to "get the job done."

The media didn't report troop movements. Talk about the logistics of war was discouraged. "Loose lips sink ships" was one of the many phrases that reminded us not to talk about things soldiers might have written home about. But those wouldn't have gotten through the military censors, anyway.

Yes, there were military censors who read mail going to and from the troops and deleted sentences that seemed inappropriate. And NO ONE WHINED ABOUT FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS BEING SUBJUGATED!

Shields' column continues:

How many U.S. vehicles are now equipped with jammers? The Pentagon insists the figure is classified. According to Taylor, the number is " miniscule." But because he is offended by visiting corporate CEOs and deputy assistant secretaries of weights and measures getting better protection than Marine lance corporals and Army privates, Taylor would not appreciate that funds for the jammers have probably already been dedicated to underwriting the next failed missile defense test.

"A jammer costs about $10,000, and it probably costs about $10,000 to bury a dead GI. I believe Americans would rather the spend the $10,000 to prevent the GI's funeral being held."

Gene Taylor is right. Every American has a moral obligation to make certain that the nation's troops are truly the world's " best equipped."

More than that, every American has a moral obligation to put political differences aside (and that includes Hollywood) to support this war in every possible way. That means save the criticism until a year before the next election. That means for government to begin a national war effort. That means for all of us to look for ways we can help -- from working with the Red Cross and USO to refraining from protesting and, instead, working to help get the war over.

We should be putting pressure on Congress to rev up the civilian war machine. Otherwise it's going to take four times longer and be twice the fight because we have to fight activists as well as terrorists.

The McGovern syndrome: A surrender is not a peace David Horowitz

On Christmas Day, former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern wrote a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times (and
probably many other papers) calling for an American surrender in Iraq. George McGovern has not been in the headlines for three decades, and his name consequently may be unfamiliar to many. But no one has had a greater or more baleful impact on the Democratic Party and its electoral fortunes than this progressive product of the South Dakota plains.

The leftward slide of the Democratic Party, which has made it an uncertain trumpet in matters of war and peace, may be said to have begun with the McGovern presidential campaign of 1972, whose slogan was "American come home" - as though America was the problem and not the aggression of the Communist bloc. The McGovern campaign drew in the rank and file of the anti-Vietnam Left, much like the anti-Cold War Henry Wallace Progressive Party campaign of 1948 and the Howard Dean anti-Iraq campaign of 2004.
McGovern himself was a veteran of the Wallace campaign and, virtually all the leaders of the anti-Iraq movement, including most of the Democratic Party leaders who supported it, are veterans of the anti-Vietnam campaign.

I have lived this history as both spectator and actor. My parents were Communists, and my first political march was a Communist Party May Day parade in 1948 supporting the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party against the Cold War - which meant against America's effort to contain Communism and prevent Stalin's regime from expanding its empire into Western Europe. Our chant was this: "One, two, three, four, we don't want another war/Five, six, seven, eight, win with Wallace in '48."

This campaign was the seed of the antiwar movement of Vietnam, and thus of the political Left's influence over the post-Vietnam foreign policy of the Democratic Party. The Wallace campaign marked an exodus of the anti-American Left from the Democratic Party; the movement that opposed America's war in Vietnam marked its return.

As a post-graduate student at Berkeley in the early Sixties, I was one of the organizers of the first demonstration against the war in Vietnam. It was 1962, and the organizers of this demonstration as of all the major anti-Vietnam demonstrations (and those against the Iraq war as well) were a Marxist and a leftist, respectively. The organizers of the movement against the war in Vietnam were activists who thought the Communists were liberating Vietnam in the same way Michael Moore thinks Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is liberating Iraq.

In 1968, Tom Hayden and the antiwar Left incited a riot at the Democratic Party convention which effectively ended the presidential hopes of the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. (Humphrey, who was Lyndon Johnson's vice president, was a supporter of the war.) This paved the way for George McGovern's failed presidential run against the war in 1972.

The following year, President Nixon signed a truce in Vietnam and withdrew American troops. His goal was "peace with honor," which meant denying a Communist victory in South Vietnam. The truce was an uneasy one depending on a credible American threat to resume hostilities if the Communists violated the truce.

Three years earlier, Nixon had signaled an end to the draft, and the massive national antiwar demonstrations had drawn to a halt. But a vanguard of activists continued the war against America's support for the anti-Communist war effort in Vietnam. Among them were John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. They held a war crimes tribunal, condemning America's role in Vietnam, and conducted a campaign to persuade the Democrats in Congress to cut all aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia, thus opening the door for a Communist conquest. When Nixon was forced to resign after Watergate, the
Democratic congress cut the aid as their first legislative act. They did this in January 1975. In April, the Cambodian and South Vietnamese regimes fell.

The events that followed this retreat in Indochina have been all but forgotten by the Left, which has never learned the lessons of Vietnam, but instead has invoked the retreat itself as an inspiration and guide for its political opposition to the war in Iraq. Along with leading Democrats like Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, George McGovern called for an American retreat from Iraq even before a government could be established to assure the country will not fall prey to the Saddamist remnants and Islamic terrorists: "I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there." Explained McGovern: "Once we left
Vietnam and quit bombing its people they became friends and trading partners."[1]

Actually, that is not what happened. Four months after the Democrats cut off aid to Cambodia and Vietnam in January 1975, both regimes fell to the Communist armies. Within three years the Communist victors had slaughtered two-and-a-half million peasants in the Indochinese peninsula, paving the way for their socialist paradise. The blood of those victims is on the hands of the Americans who forced this withdrawal: John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, and George McGovern - and antiwar activists like myself.

It is true that Vietnam eventually became a trading partner ("friend" is another matter). But this was not true that it occurred "once we left and quit bombing its people." Before that took place, a Republican president confronted the Soviet Union in Europe and Afghanistan and forced the collapse of the Soviet empire. It was only then, after the Cold War enemy and support of the Vietnamese Communists had been defeated, that they accommodated themselves to co-existence with the United States.

The "blame America first" mentality so manifest in this McGovern statement is endemic to the appeasement mentality that the "progressive" senator so typifies: "Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay or leave, as earlier conquerors learned." In McGovern's Alice-in-Wonderland universe, Iraq did not invade two countries; use chemical weapons on its Kurdish population; attempt to assassinate a U.S. president; spend tens of billions of dollars on banned weapons programs; aid and abet Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the West; and defy 17 UN resolutions to disarm itself, open its borders to UN inspectors, and adhere to the terms of the UN truce it had signed when its aggression in Kuwait was thwarted.

During the battle over Vietnam policy thirty years ago, Nixon and supporters of the war effort had warned the antiwar Left of the consequences that would follow if their campaign was successful. If the United States were to
retreat from the field of battle, the Communists would engineer a 'bloodbath' of revenge and complete their revolutionary design. When confronted by these warnings, George McGovern, John Kerry, and other anti-Vietnam activists dismissed them out of hand. This was just an attempt to justify an imperialist aggression, they assured the public. Time proved the antiwar activists to be tragically, catastrophically wrong, although they have never had the decency to admit it.

If the United States were to leave the battlefield in Iraq now, before the peace is secured (and thus repeat the earlier retreat), there would be a bloodbath along the Tigris and Euphrates. The jihadists will slaughter our friends, our allies, and all of the Iraqis who are struggling for freedom. Given the nature of the terrorist war we are in, this bloodbath would also flow into the streets of Washington and New York and potentially every American city. The jihadists have sworn to kill us all. People who think America is invulnerable, that America can just leave the field of this
battle and there will be peace, do not begin to understand the world we confront.

Or if they understand it, they have tilted their allegiance to the other side. McGovern's phrase "as earlier conquerors learned," speaks volumes about the perverse moral calculus of the progressive Left. To McGovern we are conquerors, which makes the al-Zarqawi terrorists "liberators," or as Michael Moore would prefer, "patriots." The Left that wants America to throw in the towel in Iraq is hypersensitive to questions about its loyalties but at the same time can casually refer to our presence in Iraq as an "invasion and occupation." It wants to use the language of morality, but it only wants the standard to apply in one direction. There is no one-dimensional
standard, and a politics of surrender is not a politics of peace.

ENDNOTES:
[1] Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2004.

It Seems a World Away, But Is It?

Immense devastation in the Indian Ocean with tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people dead, severe illness probable, economic devastation in the region accomplished -- it all seems far away to us here in the US.

We're happy to send all the relief we dare afford (we are, after all, in an expensive and necessary war) along with our prayers and relief workers. Do we, though, expect this tsunami tragedy to affect our lives? More important, will it? If so, how?

In his article titled Tsunamis: The Geopolitical Aftermath, Alan Adkisson puts the incident into perspective. First he points out

this tragedy pales in comparison to the cumulative impact of catastrophes that are happening all the time, in the same region. Regular flooding in India and Bangladesh, for example, affects millions of people every year. Thousands die every year. Some people live in the tops of trees for months at a time. Early this year, two-thirds of Bangladesh was under water.

One difference in this case, however, is that this disaster will have a tremendous economic impact on the region. The entire tourist industry of southeast Asia has gone, quite literally, down the drain. It will be years before those resorts can rebuild and possibly even more years before tourists will return, especially those thousands who managed to survive.

Adkisson writes, "In southern Thailand, that income served as an economic buffer between the Thai government in the north, and the Islamic insurgency in the south. Without that buffer, tensions are likely to grow (despite the recent "peace airdrop" of origami cranes), and regional rebels are likely to exploit that fact. Expect tough times for Thailand."

The geopolitical affect on the world will be immense. First, there's the massive relief effort involving the entire world. The BBC reports that relief workers call the devastation "beyond imagination." This will be the largest ever appeal for funding and relief aid. A UN donor and aid appeal summit is planned for the New Year, although individual nations are already sending their own donations.

These recovery efforts are also likely to pull India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand closer together in economic cooperation. Although they will need a lot of help from the rest of the world, there's strength in numbers and if they work together to build a future, the region may come into its own economically some day.

There will, undoubtedly, be an effort to put the area on a tsunami warning system as part of the recovery effort. Human nature being as it is, the resort hotels and homes will rise again on the beaches and the countries will repopulate. If there is a next time, surely there will be a warning system in place.

Adkisson believes the Chinese will take advantage of the situation to increase its presence in the region. If that should happen, the political repercussions should be interesting.

"Here is a scary but inescapable thought that absolutely must be reckoned with," he wrotes. "As awful and unprecedented as they were, the giant waves in SE Asia will likely be overshadowed by far greater disasters, natural and technological, as the world system continues to grow more crowded, fragile, and vulnerable in the coming years. The world may be filled with brilliant flares of innovation, but it is also filled with disasters waiting to happen -- and some of them undoubtedly will."

The argument for world overcrowding seems to be more fragile and vulnerable than the possibility when you consider that at this writing there are 60,000+ people dead as a result of the tsunami and the number is expected to double when disease takes hold in the region. Add deaths due to wars and various other causes and overcrowding doesn't seem to be a problem for the immediate future -- immediate in the sense of a generation or two.

Adkisson is worried about climate change disasters, as well, and seems to think we can do something about that. Although he doesn't say so, the implication I take from his statements is that he attributes global warming to fossil fuel emissions. Too many responsible scientists say that isn't so and even common sense makes heavy argument against it. The earth has been cooling and warming from the beginning of time and the latest warming has been going on in increments since the last Ice Age. Automobiles and hair spray had nothing to do with it then and likely have nothing to do with it now.

So what we can all do is pray for the souls of the dead and for health and comfort for the living. It is truly a massive tragedy that has befallen our southeast Asian brethren and our hearts, funds and prayers go out to them.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Christmas Address, December 24, 1944

It is not easy to say "Merry Christmas" to you, my fellow Americans, in this time of destructive war.

Nor can I say "Merry Christmas" lightly tonight to our armed forces at their battle stations all over the world -- or to our allies who fight by their side. Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way- because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and Good Will.

But, in perhaps every home in the United States, sad and anxious thoughts will be continually with the millions of our loved ones who are suffering hardships and misery, and who are risking their very lives to preserve for us and for all mankind the fruits of His teachings and the foundations of civilization itself. The Christmas spirit lives tonight in the bitter cold of the front lines in Europe and in the heat of the jungles and swamps of Burma and the Pacific islands. Even the roar of our bombers and fighters in the air and the guns of our ships at sea will not drown out the messages of Christmas which come to the hearts of our fighting men.
The thoughts of these men tonight will turn to us here at home around our Christmas trees, surrounded by our children and grandchildren and their Christmas stockings and gifts -- just as our own thoughts go out to them, tonight and every night, in their distant places.

We all know how anxious they are to be home with us, and they know how anxious we are to have them -- and how determined every one of us is to make their day of home-coming as early as possible. And -- above all -- they know the determination of all right-thinking people and Nations, that Christmases such as those that we have known in these years of world tragedy shall not come again to beset the souls of the children of God.

This generation has passed through many recent years of deep darkness, watching the spread of the poison of Hitlerism and Fascism in Europe-the growth of imperialism and militarism in Japan- and the final clash of war all over the world. Then came the dark days of the fall of France, and the ruthless bombing of England, and the desperate battle of the Atlantic, and of Pearl Harbor and Corregidor and Singapore.
Since then the prayers of good men and women and children the world over have been answered.

The tide of battle has turned, slowly but inexorably, against those who sought to destroy civilization.

On this Christmas day, we cannot yet say when our victory will come.Our enemies still fight fanatically.They still have reserves of men and military power.
But, they themselves know that they and their evil works are doomed.We may hasten the day of their doom if we here at home continue to do our full share.And we pray that that day may come soon.

We pray that until then, God will protect our gallant men and women in the uniforms of the United Nations- that He will receive into His infinite grace those who make their supreme sacrifice in the cause of righteousness, in the cause of love of Him and His teachings.

We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth in which all the Nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day.

May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come.

Step Between the Back and the President

When I first checked out the "Turn Your Back On Bush" website, I thought "and these are the people who accuse Republicans of being divisive." My second thought was that it's typical of Democrat/liberals, who are the first to turn tail and run rather than listen to something that they think they don't want to hear.

The website calls for members of the crowds at the inauguration to perform an act of intense rudeness, an act that is recognized in many cultures as a supreme insult.

What is this action? The following appears on the second page of their website.

Turn Your Back on Bush is a new kind of event in an old tradition: direct nonviolent action. In the past four years, Bush has made it clear that dissent is unwelcome in his America, and his policies have created an atmosphere where demonstrators are corralled and their messages marginalized. Polls show that the majority of Americans disagree with Bush on numerous issues, but by refusing to talk to anyone but the most subservient press outlets and appearing only in highly staged events, he has cut himself off from all but his most ardent supporters.

We want our audience with our President.

On inauguration day, we will gather as citizens for the public events of the day and join the rest of the crowd. At a given signal, we will turn our backs. Until the moment we turn around, there will be nothing to distinguish us. By leaving our signs and buttons at home, we will avoid all of the obstacles that Bush and his supporters have used to keep anyone who disagrees with him out of sight.

One of the things that makes Turn Your Back on Bush a unique action is that we won't know who is participating until the moment it begins. This is a nonviolent, silent, and non-responsive action. We expect that our actions will cause some supporters of President Bush to confront us. In order to make this action as effective as possible, we will publish action guidelines and expect those people participating in the action to remain silent, refrain from escalating, and above all, keep this protest non-violent.

Of course their facts are wrong -- the President has listened to dissenters; he just chose not to agree. He has talked to the media; they have twisted the facts and stood by the twists. It is the President who should turn his back on the 48% but he's above that kind of rudeness and, besides, he has 51% on his side.

Note the sentence above "We want an audience with ourPresident." They claim him as "our" President, yet seem to believe that treating him with disrespect at an important moment in his life will, somehow, get them that audience.

Might I suggest that the way to be heard by your President is exactly the same way his supporters are? Write to him, write to your congressmen and women and write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines. You, after all, tell us you are the intellectuals of our society. Then act like intellectuals -- write. And might I add that tacky four-letter curse words accompanied by no punctuation and no capital letters doesn't add to the impression that you are intelligent?

Did your Mothers never tell you that being rude isn't how you get your way? Have you never learned that sugar attracts more flies than vinegar?

President Bush knows that 48% of Americans voted Democratic. He has said he wants to hear you and to reach out to you. But should he if you are rude and disrespectful? Would YOU if you were in his place? I doubt it.

Donna Cassata, AP writer, says more will be going on and that the back-turning will happen when the President's limo passes down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capital. She writes, "organizers are urging demonstrators to leave political buttons and placards at home, join other parade-goers on the afternoon of the inauguration and then, as Bush's motorcade passes, show the president their backs."

I have a suggestion. If you're going to the Inauguration, simply watch those around you. If someone turns his/her back, quickly step between him and the President so that the President can't see him. If you do it quickly and don't touch him, he won't even know you're there. He can go home happily thinking he insulted the President and you can go home knowing he didn't. That, I think, would be a great feeling!

That's a way to tell the protestors that you don't agree. If you take no action, they'll think they were right.

After all, they plan other events that day. Cassata writes in ,"Quiet Protest Planned for Inauguration, "Among planned events are an anti-war rally and three-mile march to the White House, a massive bike ride similar to those that disrupted traffic in New York City before the Republican National Convention, and a "die-in" to remind the nation of more than 1,200 U.S. dead in Iraq."

That's enough to make the point. Rudeness goes beyond the pale.