Thankful
by Jonny Lang
********************************************
Someone's standing in a welfare line
Or off the freeway with a hungry sign
Someone' streessin' 'bout to lose their mind
I gotta be thankful, thankful
Someone just became a single mother
Someone just lost a sister or brother
It's so important that we love each other
And be
Thankful, thankful
I've gotta take the time to say, that I'm
Thankful, thankful
For every single breath I take
I've gotta be thankful, thankful
Someone's sitting in a prison cell
Wasting away in a personal hell
Everybody's got their own story to tell
I've gotta be thankful, thankful
Man, I used to think I didn't have a lot
Now I realize just how much I've got
Now every day I'm gonna take the time to stop to be
Thankful, thankful
For every single breath I take
I've gotta be thankful, thankful
Any one of these so easily could have been me
But if it had not been for grace and mercy who knows where I'd be
I've been riding on this roller coaster ride
'Round and 'round I've see the up and downside
And I'm here to tell you that the secret of life is being
Thankful, thankful
For every single breath I take
I've gotta be thankful, thankful
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Red Letter Christians
Red Letter Christians
Somehow, Jesus has survived even the church.
by Jim Wallis
“I’m a secular Jewish country music songwriter and disk jockey,” my interviewer on a Nashville radio station said. “But I love your stuff and have been following your book tour.” He told me he loved my “riffs” and would like to spend an evening together just to get some lines for new music. “You’re a songwriter’s dream.” Then he told me he believed we were starting a new movement, but noticed we hadn’t come up with a name for it yet. “I’ve got an idea for you,” he said. “I think you should call yourselves ‘The Red Letter Christians,’ for the red parts of the Bible that highlight the words of Jesus. I love the red letter stuff.”
The truth is that there are many people who like the “red letter stuff,” and many of them are not even Christians. Try it yourself sometime. Go out on the street or to your school or workplace and take a poll. Ask people what they think Jesus stood for. You’re likely to hear things like “stood with poor people,” or “compassionate,” or “loving,” or “he was for peace.” Then ask them what Christians or the church stand for. And you’re likely to hear some very different things.
We have a problem. Most people have the idea, as crazy as it may seem, that Christians and the church are supposed to stand for the same things that Jesus did. And when they don’t, people get confused and disillusioned. It’s a problem.
When Jesus tells us he will regard the way we treat the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner as if we were treating him that way, it likely means he wouldn’t think capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy and food stamp cuts for the poor represent the best domestic policy. Or when he tells us “love your enemies” and “blessed are the peacemakers,” it might be hard to persuade him to join our “war against terrorism,” especially when there is so much “collateral damage” to civilians, including women and children.
Yes, Jesus is a problem —for many of our churches, the Wall Street traders, and the powerful people in Washington who maintain the American Empire. But for millions of people, religious or not, Jesus remains the most compelling figure in the world today. The church may not be much more credible than the advertisers, the media, or the politicians, but Jesus remains far above the rest of the crowd. Somehow, Jesus has even survived the church and all of us who name his name but too often forget most of what he said. Two new books are calling us to meet Jesus again.
This issue includes a section of Brian McLaren’s new book, The Secret Message of Jesus—a message often kept secret even by the churches themselves and utterly disguised by many of our television evangelists who seem to preach a different gospel. Brian is the spiritual leader of a new movement called the “emergent church,” which is drawing a generation raised in the churches back to Jesus and attracting many outside the religious community to a Jesus they never heard about from the churches. He knows that people intuitively recognize that Jesus’ message of God’s kingdom—a new world of compassion, justice, integrity, and peace—is the good news they’ve been searching and waiting for.
Read the excerpt, get the book, and learn the message of Jesus all over again—or maybe for the first time.
Shane Claiborne is a good example of the old adage, “Be careful what you pray for.” Evangelicals like to pray that Christian young people will learn to love Jesus and follow in his steps. Well, that’s exactly what this young Christian activist is talking about in his book The Irresistible Revolution. But the places that following Jesus have led him are not the comfortable suburbs and cultural habits of many evangelical Christians. Worst of all, his notions of fidelity to the gospel seem to directly counter the political loyalties that many conservatives on the Religious Right have made into an almost doctrinal litmus test.
For several years, Shane has been living the gospel on the streets of Philadelphia and Calcutta, in the intensity of Christian community, and even in the war zones of Iraq. In his book, he takes us on pilgrimage with him—sharing his passions while admitting his uncertainties, critiquing his society and his church while admitting his own human frailties and contradictions, revealing his hopes for changing the world while embracing the “smallness” of the efforts and initiatives he holds most dear.
They call their community “The Simple Way” and believe that by plunging deeper into what the earliest Christians called “The Way”—the way of Jesus, the way of the kingdom, and the way of the cross—they rediscover the biblical reversal of our social logic: that the foolishness of God has always seemed a little nuts to the world. I found the reading of this book a delight, as I also find the author. Read it and find your hope rise.
The landscape of religion, society, and politics in America is being transformed. As I crisscross the country, I feel a new momentum and movement. Perhaps the greatest sign of hope is the emergence of a generation of Christians eager to take their faith into the world. The Christianity of private piety, affluent conformity, and only “God Bless America” has compromised the witness of the church while putting a new generation of Christians to sleep. Defining faith by the things you won’t do does not create a compelling style of life. And a generation of young people is hungry for an agenda worthy of its commitment, its energy, and its gifts.
Brian’s and Shane’s books are evidence that believers are waking up and catching on fire with the gospel again. Their vision can’t easily be put into categories of liberal and conservative, left and right, but rather has the capacity to challenge the categories themselves. These books are a manifesto for all those “red letter” Christians who have fallen in love with Jesus again and want to live their faith in this world, and not just the next. God is again doing something new.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
Somehow, Jesus has survived even the church.
by Jim Wallis
“I’m a secular Jewish country music songwriter and disk jockey,” my interviewer on a Nashville radio station said. “But I love your stuff and have been following your book tour.” He told me he loved my “riffs” and would like to spend an evening together just to get some lines for new music. “You’re a songwriter’s dream.” Then he told me he believed we were starting a new movement, but noticed we hadn’t come up with a name for it yet. “I’ve got an idea for you,” he said. “I think you should call yourselves ‘The Red Letter Christians,’ for the red parts of the Bible that highlight the words of Jesus. I love the red letter stuff.”
The truth is that there are many people who like the “red letter stuff,” and many of them are not even Christians. Try it yourself sometime. Go out on the street or to your school or workplace and take a poll. Ask people what they think Jesus stood for. You’re likely to hear things like “stood with poor people,” or “compassionate,” or “loving,” or “he was for peace.” Then ask them what Christians or the church stand for. And you’re likely to hear some very different things.
We have a problem. Most people have the idea, as crazy as it may seem, that Christians and the church are supposed to stand for the same things that Jesus did. And when they don’t, people get confused and disillusioned. It’s a problem.
When Jesus tells us he will regard the way we treat the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner as if we were treating him that way, it likely means he wouldn’t think capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy and food stamp cuts for the poor represent the best domestic policy. Or when he tells us “love your enemies” and “blessed are the peacemakers,” it might be hard to persuade him to join our “war against terrorism,” especially when there is so much “collateral damage” to civilians, including women and children.
Yes, Jesus is a problem —for many of our churches, the Wall Street traders, and the powerful people in Washington who maintain the American Empire. But for millions of people, religious or not, Jesus remains the most compelling figure in the world today. The church may not be much more credible than the advertisers, the media, or the politicians, but Jesus remains far above the rest of the crowd. Somehow, Jesus has even survived the church and all of us who name his name but too often forget most of what he said. Two new books are calling us to meet Jesus again.
This issue includes a section of Brian McLaren’s new book, The Secret Message of Jesus—a message often kept secret even by the churches themselves and utterly disguised by many of our television evangelists who seem to preach a different gospel. Brian is the spiritual leader of a new movement called the “emergent church,” which is drawing a generation raised in the churches back to Jesus and attracting many outside the religious community to a Jesus they never heard about from the churches. He knows that people intuitively recognize that Jesus’ message of God’s kingdom—a new world of compassion, justice, integrity, and peace—is the good news they’ve been searching and waiting for.
Read the excerpt, get the book, and learn the message of Jesus all over again—or maybe for the first time.
Shane Claiborne is a good example of the old adage, “Be careful what you pray for.” Evangelicals like to pray that Christian young people will learn to love Jesus and follow in his steps. Well, that’s exactly what this young Christian activist is talking about in his book The Irresistible Revolution. But the places that following Jesus have led him are not the comfortable suburbs and cultural habits of many evangelical Christians. Worst of all, his notions of fidelity to the gospel seem to directly counter the political loyalties that many conservatives on the Religious Right have made into an almost doctrinal litmus test.
For several years, Shane has been living the gospel on the streets of Philadelphia and Calcutta, in the intensity of Christian community, and even in the war zones of Iraq. In his book, he takes us on pilgrimage with him—sharing his passions while admitting his uncertainties, critiquing his society and his church while admitting his own human frailties and contradictions, revealing his hopes for changing the world while embracing the “smallness” of the efforts and initiatives he holds most dear.
They call their community “The Simple Way” and believe that by plunging deeper into what the earliest Christians called “The Way”—the way of Jesus, the way of the kingdom, and the way of the cross—they rediscover the biblical reversal of our social logic: that the foolishness of God has always seemed a little nuts to the world. I found the reading of this book a delight, as I also find the author. Read it and find your hope rise.
The landscape of religion, society, and politics in America is being transformed. As I crisscross the country, I feel a new momentum and movement. Perhaps the greatest sign of hope is the emergence of a generation of Christians eager to take their faith into the world. The Christianity of private piety, affluent conformity, and only “God Bless America” has compromised the witness of the church while putting a new generation of Christians to sleep. Defining faith by the things you won’t do does not create a compelling style of life. And a generation of young people is hungry for an agenda worthy of its commitment, its energy, and its gifts.
Brian’s and Shane’s books are evidence that believers are waking up and catching on fire with the gospel again. Their vision can’t easily be put into categories of liberal and conservative, left and right, but rather has the capacity to challenge the categories themselves. These books are a manifesto for all those “red letter” Christians who have fallen in love with Jesus again and want to live their faith in this world, and not just the next. God is again doing something new.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
Paradise Awaits
From Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech to the U.N.:
"I emphatically declare that today’s world, more than ever before, longs for
just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for
the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to
all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.
O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have
ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for
justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his
followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."
The head of a nation, a dictator, who is on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons capability is praying for the hastening of the Apocalypse.
Utterly terrifying.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Song Lyric Thursday
Close Edge by Mos Def
*******************************
Pull up to ya spot on low
Shine brighter than all o' them cats they got on glow
Layin the cut like they not gon' know
Cuz if I gotta make a move dawg they not gonna know
This door marked private this is not fo' sho'
It's Mos Def what you call real fo' sho'
Is they what you call gangsta, hell no
They get a lil' pitch and go snitch to the po'
They all talk fast and they all think slow
I'm Mos Definite, not think so
Flood ya city with the black ink flow
And my crew ain't scared to let them things go
So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious
I'm just alright dawg,
I'm doin' great dawg
I don't play games so I don't playa hate y'all
Get it straight or get the fuck up out my face dawg
I'm like the second plane that made the tower's face off
That shit that let you know it's really not a game dawg
Your grind and my grindin is same dawg
I'm the catalogue, you the same song
So cool and ol' school like 84'
The one ya lil mami windin' up her waist for
The name that real niggaz got they hands raised for
Me and Mini got ya block yellow taped off
Don't push me (get off)'Cuz I'm close -
To the streets,to the beach, the bitches, the niggaz,
the women, the children, the workers,
the killers, the addicts, the dealers
the quiet, the livest, the realest- And that's close
Don't push me, cuz I'm close
To the edge, back, middle, and front
Strong back shit liftin' it up
From the big and the small
I'm like J. Brown +Gettin' Involved+
But when I'm lettin' off around don't get in the cross
Have ya preacher man speakin' low gettin' his cross
Tell 'em wild cowboy not to get off they horse
Before they find out the tailon is strictly enforced
It's a real bad way to get ya name in the
SourceTestin' the limits of a dangerous force
Ya ended up dumb famous and gone
Your people shoutin' out ya name in they song
Pourin' liquor on the day you was born
Find paint to put ya face on the wall
C'mon fall back, there's no need for all that
It's all good, we all here, goin' all out (all out)
All day, listen when this song say
Don't push me 'cuz I'm close -
To the streets,to the beach, the bitches, the niggaz,
the women, the children, the workers,
the killers, the addicts, the dealers
the quiet, the livest, the realest-
And that's close
Don't push me, cuz I'm close
To the edge, back, middle, and front
Strong back shit liftin' it up
From the big and the small
I'm like J. Brown +Gettin' Involved+
Now get yours
*******************************
Pull up to ya spot on low
Shine brighter than all o' them cats they got on glow
Layin the cut like they not gon' know
Cuz if I gotta make a move dawg they not gonna know
This door marked private this is not fo' sho'
It's Mos Def what you call real fo' sho'
Is they what you call gangsta, hell no
They get a lil' pitch and go snitch to the po'
They all talk fast and they all think slow
I'm Mos Definite, not think so
Flood ya city with the black ink flow
And my crew ain't scared to let them things go
So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious
I'm just alright dawg,
I'm doin' great dawg
I don't play games so I don't playa hate y'all
Get it straight or get the fuck up out my face dawg
I'm like the second plane that made the tower's face off
That shit that let you know it's really not a game dawg
Your grind and my grindin is same dawg
I'm the catalogue, you the same song
So cool and ol' school like 84'
The one ya lil mami windin' up her waist for
The name that real niggaz got they hands raised for
Me and Mini got ya block yellow taped off
Don't push me (get off)'Cuz I'm close -
To the streets,to the beach, the bitches, the niggaz,
the women, the children, the workers,
the killers, the addicts, the dealers
the quiet, the livest, the realest- And that's close
Don't push me, cuz I'm close
To the edge, back, middle, and front
Strong back shit liftin' it up
From the big and the small
I'm like J. Brown +Gettin' Involved+
But when I'm lettin' off around don't get in the cross
Have ya preacher man speakin' low gettin' his cross
Tell 'em wild cowboy not to get off they horse
Before they find out the tailon is strictly enforced
It's a real bad way to get ya name in the
SourceTestin' the limits of a dangerous force
Ya ended up dumb famous and gone
Your people shoutin' out ya name in they song
Pourin' liquor on the day you was born
Find paint to put ya face on the wall
C'mon fall back, there's no need for all that
It's all good, we all here, goin' all out (all out)
All day, listen when this song say
Don't push me 'cuz I'm close -
To the streets,to the beach, the bitches, the niggaz,
the women, the children, the workers,
the killers, the addicts, the dealers
the quiet, the livest, the realest-
And that's close
Don't push me, cuz I'm close
To the edge, back, middle, and front
Strong back shit liftin' it up
From the big and the small
I'm like J. Brown +Gettin' Involved+
Now get yours
SNL Shrinks
Who knew that it was even possible, but SNL just might suck even harder than it already does. It would appear that veteran Chris Parnell has been axed, along with Finesse Mitchell (one of the two black guys on the show, neither of whom are even remotely funny). It's also possible that the great Maya Rudolph and Darrell Hammond will be gone, too. Let's hope this just means he's adding Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Dane Cook, and Sara Silverman to the line up...but I doubt it.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Torture 2006
William Kristol of the Weekly Standard now thinks it's a good idea to use torture as campaign platform. Lovely.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/711lzwcj.asp?pg=1
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/711lzwcj.asp?pg=1
A True Martyr
I borrowed this from Michelle Malkin's site because I don't think I could have said it better than she did.
*****************************************************
This what a real martyr looks like
By Michelle Malkin · September 18, 2006 09:25 AM
Sister Leonella: Murdered by jihadists
There's a new Associated Press report on the murder of Sister Leonella that confirms the bloody obvious:
An elderly nun who was gunned down at the hospital where she worked in Somalia's capital was "specifically targeted before being executed by gunmen lying in wait," a hospital official said Monday.
Willy Huber, regional director of the Austrian-funded hospital where 65-year-old Sister Leonella had worked for four years, said the killing was not random. "She had no chance," said Huber, who heads the S.O.S. Kinderdorf organization in East Africa. "It was like an execution."
It was an execution:
...Sister Leonella was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital. Her bodyguard also was slain. The two had been walking the 10 meters (30 feet) from the Mogadishu hospital to the sister's home, where three other nuns were waiting to have lunch with her. "The gunmen specifically targeted her," Huber said. "They were waiting for her. As she crossed the road they opened fire. We had no warning of this." He spoke after accompanying the Italian nun's body to Nairobi, Kenya, late Sunday. He said she will be buried in the capital later this week. Three other nuns who also worked at the hospital were pulled out of the Somali capital, and no decision has been made on their return. Sister Leonella, whose birth name was Rosa Sgorbati, had lived and worked in Kenya and Somalia for 38 years, her family said.
Her last words:
Sister Leonella, 65, muttered the words 'I forgive, I forgive' in Italian after being targeted by gunmen in an apparent execution-style killing, father Maloba Wesonga told The Associated Press at the nun's memorial mass in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Monday.
Those are the words and deeds of a true martyr. God bless her.
***
Meanwhile, they burn the cross and firebomb Christian churches because they know they have nothing to lose--not their heads, their lives, anything. But if we so much as drop a Koran, joke about Muslims, or draw Mohammed...
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Song Lyric Thursday
Why not...
******************************************************
SLOW DANCING IN A BURNING ROOM
John Mayer
It's not a silly little moment
It's not the storm before the calm
This is the deep and dying breath
Of this love that we've been working on
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
So I can feel you in my arms
Nobody's gonna come and save you
We pulled too many false alarms
We're going down
And you can see it, too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
I was the one you always dreamed of
You were the one I tried to draw
How dare you say it's nothing to me?
Baby, you're the only light I ever saw
I'll make the most of all the sadness
You'll be a bitch because you can
You're try to hit me just to hurt me
So you leave me feeling dirty
Cause you can't understand
We're going down
And you can see it, too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Go cry about it, why don't you?
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Don't you think we oughta know by now?
Don't you think we should have learned somehow?
******************************************************
SLOW DANCING IN A BURNING ROOM
John Mayer
It's not a silly little moment
It's not the storm before the calm
This is the deep and dying breath
Of this love that we've been working on
Can't seem to hold you like I want to
So I can feel you in my arms
Nobody's gonna come and save you
We pulled too many false alarms
We're going down
And you can see it, too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
I was the one you always dreamed of
You were the one I tried to draw
How dare you say it's nothing to me?
Baby, you're the only light I ever saw
I'll make the most of all the sadness
You'll be a bitch because you can
You're try to hit me just to hurt me
So you leave me feeling dirty
Cause you can't understand
We're going down
And you can see it, too
We're going down
And you know that we're doomed
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Go cry about it, why don't you?
My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room
Don't you think we oughta know by now?
Don't you think we should have learned somehow?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Mom & Pop Shops Beware
This is just one example of how locally owned stores continue to get their behinds kicked by big stores...
I’m looking for a book and my first thought is a brick and mortar store. It’s a Christian book but I know I can get a good deal through Barnes and Noble because of their customer loyalty program. I call the store, someone picks up right away, and they don’t carry it. So I think I’ll try a Christian outlet. I go online to christianbook.com and while they have it at a great price, it’ll take at least a week to arrive, vs. a few days through barnesandnoble.com. But I figure I’ll give a Christian outlet one more chance, so I call the local Christian store (not Family Christian stores, this one is locally owned with three outlets) three times at 6:45 in the evening and get a constant busy signal. Why? WHY?????
Example #2.....
My wife is from a small town in Central Pennsylvania. Her town has a great ice cream stand that sells soft serve ice cream, the only one in town. On a recent holiday weekend in the summer, we visited the little burg and thought it would be nice to go to the ice cream stand for a cone after dinner, roughly 6:00 in the evening one Friday. What a surprise we got when we rolled up only to see a sign saying it was closed "for the holiday weekend." How does an ice cream stand close for a holiday weekend in the summer, you might ask? Because they can. Because they know that they're the only ones selling soft serve within 10 miles (an eternity for these people, believe me) so they can do whatever they want to. Tyranny due to no competiton.
I’m looking for a book and my first thought is a brick and mortar store. It’s a Christian book but I know I can get a good deal through Barnes and Noble because of their customer loyalty program. I call the store, someone picks up right away, and they don’t carry it. So I think I’ll try a Christian outlet. I go online to christianbook.com and while they have it at a great price, it’ll take at least a week to arrive, vs. a few days through barnesandnoble.com. But I figure I’ll give a Christian outlet one more chance, so I call the local Christian store (not Family Christian stores, this one is locally owned with three outlets) three times at 6:45 in the evening and get a constant busy signal. Why? WHY?????
Example #2.....
My wife is from a small town in Central Pennsylvania. Her town has a great ice cream stand that sells soft serve ice cream, the only one in town. On a recent holiday weekend in the summer, we visited the little burg and thought it would be nice to go to the ice cream stand for a cone after dinner, roughly 6:00 in the evening one Friday. What a surprise we got when we rolled up only to see a sign saying it was closed "for the holiday weekend." How does an ice cream stand close for a holiday weekend in the summer, you might ask? Because they can. Because they know that they're the only ones selling soft serve within 10 miles (an eternity for these people, believe me) so they can do whatever they want to. Tyranny due to no competiton.
It Was Only A Matter Of Time...
...before Rosie O'Donnell said something that should make ABC regret ever hiring her. See the video here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIoDTzvEdGw
Only one day after the five year anniversary of September 11, Rosie posits that "Radical" Christianity is as threatening as Radical Islam. Funny, I haven't seen any crazed Baptists force journalists to convert at gunpoint recently. And the jihadists she defends (or at least compares to Christians) have a real interesting way of dealing with homosexuals in their countries; they kill them. By law. I don't see that happening here, Ro.
Hopefully, Rosie's days are numbered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIoDTzvEdGw
Only one day after the five year anniversary of September 11, Rosie posits that "Radical" Christianity is as threatening as Radical Islam. Funny, I haven't seen any crazed Baptists force journalists to convert at gunpoint recently. And the jihadists she defends (or at least compares to Christians) have a real interesting way of dealing with homosexuals in their countries; they kill them. By law. I don't see that happening here, Ro.
Hopefully, Rosie's days are numbered.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Have You No Decency, Mr. Cohen?
On the day after the five year anniversary of September 11, and no doubt written only miles from Ground Zero, Mr. Cohen posits that the man behind this slaughter of thousands of innocent American lives is the winner in all of this. It is shameful and disgusting. I dare say that this craven coward, this demon with a word processor, does not possess the courage to tell this to the widow of one of those killed or to look in the eyes of a daugther who lost her Mommy or Daddy that terrible day and read this filth aloud.
**************************************************************************************
Bin Laden's Victory
By Richard CohenTuesday, September 12, 2006; A23
NEW YORK -- I hear Osama bin Laden laughing. I heard him all day on Sunday and Monday as the mass murder of Sept. 11, 2001, was memorialized at the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania and especially here, where the most people died and where countless cameras recorded it all for posterity and an abiding, everlasting anger. He laughs, the madman does, whenever George Bush says, as he has over and over, that America is "winning this war on terror." Bin Laden knows better. He has already won.
It is not merely that bin Laden has not been captured or killed and that videotapes keep coming out of his hideout like taunts. It is, rather, that his initial strategy has borne fruit. It was always his intention to draw the Americans into Afghanistan, where, as had been done to the Soviets, they could be mauled by the fierce mujaheddin. He tried and failed when he blew up the USS Cole off Aden at 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 sailors and crippling the ship. But he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations when the United States responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by invading Afghanistan and, in a beat, then going to war in Iraq. It remains mired in both countries to this day.
From bin Laden's standpoint, this has been a glorious victory, made possible, it has to be said, by the totally unforeseen incompetence of the Bush administration. It was so intent on going to war in Iraq that it would not finish the job in Afghanistan. So, to bin Laden's absolute amazement -- I am guessing here -- the United States took on his enemy, the secular and ungodly Saddam Hussein, whom bin Laden himself would gladly have murdered. It has to be a wonderful thing when your enemy vanquishes your enemy.
On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Dick Cheney said that if he had it to do all over again, he would still go to war in Iraq -- "we'd do exactly the same thing," he said. Why? Is the man incapable of learning from experience? We now know from umpteen reports that there was no link between bin Laden and Hussein. We now know, the Weekly Standard notwithstanding, that Mohamed Atta did not meet in Prague with someone from Iraqi intelligence. We now know that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraq war -- which has cost America more than 2,500 lives, 20,000 casualties, the respect of the world and billions of dollars -- is for naught. Talleyrand said of the Bourbons that they forgot nothing and learned nothing. It will be said of Cheney that he forgot everything and learned nothing.
How did bin Laden get so lucky? How did he get so fortunate in his choice of enemies? The Bush administration not only validated his wildest dreams -- dreams that even some of his aides thought were unrealistic -- but went even further. By using torture, by the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, by employing "extraordinary renditions" of suspects to countries where they could be tortured, by insisting on going it almost alone in Iraq, by telling the international community to shove it, by declaring a war for an idée fixe -- this fierce obsession with Hussein goes back a long way -- the United States has made itself reviled in much of the world.
And here at home, here in the United States of America, it will be a long time before lots of people trust their government again. Little wonder that 16 percent of respondents said in a recent poll that it was "very likely" that the government played some role in the Sept. 11 attacks to justify a war in the Middle East. This is a shocking figure, a measure not just of irrational thinking but of the cost of the Bush administration's mauling of the truth in its mad march to war. Bush has damaged his country more than bin Laden ever could on his own.
I was here on Sept. 11, 2001 -- downtown when the twin towers collapsed. My instantaneous reaction -- the thought that came to my mind as I heard the sound of the buildings coming down -- was for revenge. I would, to this day, kill Osama bin Laden with my own hands. But as much as I hate the man, I have to recognize that from his vantage point, from his mountain fastness somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, he has won. What he had set out to do, he has done. That is more than we can say.
cohenr@washpost.com
**************************************************************************************
Bin Laden's Victory
By Richard CohenTuesday, September 12, 2006; A23
NEW YORK -- I hear Osama bin Laden laughing. I heard him all day on Sunday and Monday as the mass murder of Sept. 11, 2001, was memorialized at the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania and especially here, where the most people died and where countless cameras recorded it all for posterity and an abiding, everlasting anger. He laughs, the madman does, whenever George Bush says, as he has over and over, that America is "winning this war on terror." Bin Laden knows better. He has already won.
It is not merely that bin Laden has not been captured or killed and that videotapes keep coming out of his hideout like taunts. It is, rather, that his initial strategy has borne fruit. It was always his intention to draw the Americans into Afghanistan, where, as had been done to the Soviets, they could be mauled by the fierce mujaheddin. He tried and failed when he blew up the USS Cole off Aden at 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2000, killing 17 sailors and crippling the ship. But he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations when the United States responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by invading Afghanistan and, in a beat, then going to war in Iraq. It remains mired in both countries to this day.
From bin Laden's standpoint, this has been a glorious victory, made possible, it has to be said, by the totally unforeseen incompetence of the Bush administration. It was so intent on going to war in Iraq that it would not finish the job in Afghanistan. So, to bin Laden's absolute amazement -- I am guessing here -- the United States took on his enemy, the secular and ungodly Saddam Hussein, whom bin Laden himself would gladly have murdered. It has to be a wonderful thing when your enemy vanquishes your enemy.
On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Dick Cheney said that if he had it to do all over again, he would still go to war in Iraq -- "we'd do exactly the same thing," he said. Why? Is the man incapable of learning from experience? We now know from umpteen reports that there was no link between bin Laden and Hussein. We now know, the Weekly Standard notwithstanding, that Mohamed Atta did not meet in Prague with someone from Iraqi intelligence. We now know that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraq war -- which has cost America more than 2,500 lives, 20,000 casualties, the respect of the world and billions of dollars -- is for naught. Talleyrand said of the Bourbons that they forgot nothing and learned nothing. It will be said of Cheney that he forgot everything and learned nothing.
How did bin Laden get so lucky? How did he get so fortunate in his choice of enemies? The Bush administration not only validated his wildest dreams -- dreams that even some of his aides thought were unrealistic -- but went even further. By using torture, by the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, by employing "extraordinary renditions" of suspects to countries where they could be tortured, by insisting on going it almost alone in Iraq, by telling the international community to shove it, by declaring a war for an idée fixe -- this fierce obsession with Hussein goes back a long way -- the United States has made itself reviled in much of the world.
And here at home, here in the United States of America, it will be a long time before lots of people trust their government again. Little wonder that 16 percent of respondents said in a recent poll that it was "very likely" that the government played some role in the Sept. 11 attacks to justify a war in the Middle East. This is a shocking figure, a measure not just of irrational thinking but of the cost of the Bush administration's mauling of the truth in its mad march to war. Bush has damaged his country more than bin Laden ever could on his own.
I was here on Sept. 11, 2001 -- downtown when the twin towers collapsed. My instantaneous reaction -- the thought that came to my mind as I heard the sound of the buildings coming down -- was for revenge. I would, to this day, kill Osama bin Laden with my own hands. But as much as I hate the man, I have to recognize that from his vantage point, from his mountain fastness somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, he has won. What he had set out to do, he has done. That is more than we can say.
cohenr@washpost.com
Monday, September 11, 2006
Friday, September 01, 2006
I Hate to Say I Told You So, But...
At the height of my conservative fervor and even recently when I came to my senses and adopted a more moderate, and at times liberal, world view, I've always thought that former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV was an untrustworthy, lying piece of shit. Well, it seems at last that he was. The White House didn't disclose his wife's identity; a critic of the White House who happened to be in the State Department did, accidentally it turns out. (I'm still not convinced she was a covert operative at the time of the publication of her name, anyway). But only after Wilson lied about "debunking reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials." So, as it turns out, if Wilson had kept his big fat mouth shut, or at least have been truthful, none of this would have mattered.
The IRS Gets It Wrong
Sadly, the NAACP has become a useless, irrelevant organization, driven into the ground by the increasingly dementia-riddled Julian Bond. It is no longer a civil rights organization, it is the Black political action committee of the Democrat Party. Their tax exempt status should be stripped from them.
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