Delusions

Delusions About Iraq
By Daniel G. Jennings
I don’t know what it is but there’s something about the present war in Iraq that produces delusions in the American mind.
In the Bush White House and in neoconservative (by the way what is a neoconservative anyway?) circles we have the delusion that Americans can bring democracy, progress and modernization to Iraq by driving around Baghdad in Hummers and tanks. If that doesn’t work the Americans can get out and build a school or hand a few candy bars to Iraqi children. If that fails we can always hand Iraqis US weapons and uniforms and in the process turn former Baathist thugs into good democratic soldiers and policemen.
Closely related to this is the delusion that Iraq can be transformed into Canada by having Iraqis hold democratic rituals. First we had the elections in January remember them they were supposed to create a new government that would solve all of Iraq’s problems. Now we have the constitutional convention, where a bunch of Iraqis locked into a hotel room can write a constitution that will save Iraq. That having failed the cycle of delusion will continue with another election.
The media of course at least buys into some of these delusions filling our TV screens with pictures of Iraqis voting or playing soldier to reassure us that “progress” is being made. Analysts middle aged white guys in expensive suits appear on screen to tell us that this is progress.
This cycle of delusion wouldn’t be so frightening if there was intelligent or realistic thinking on the other side of the Aisle. There isn’t the Democrats appear to be as deluded as the Republicans are.
The hard left, the self-proclaimed “peace movement,” and its apologists in the Democratic establishment and Pat Buchanan tell us we can solve all of Iraq’s problems by pulling out and bringing the troops home. All this would do is clear the way for Al Qaeda to move in and organize an Islamic Republic of Iraq and set up training camps. This would be preceded by a blood bath in which Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites will take turns massacring each other. The US would have no choice but to move back in, thus clearing the way for a bloodier and far more destructive conflict. Not to mention larger and better organized terrorist attacks on the US and other countries.
Establishment Democrats appear equally caught up in delusion many of them have called for internationalizing the war. That is turning the war over to the United Nations or some coalition of European nations. As the Democratic leaders know well and good the UN has neither the resources or expertise to takeover the Iraq War. Nor do the Europeans and even if they did, they lack the will to do so.
Then there’s the send more troops over there demands which we’ve heard for the last two years. This might work in the short run, we could put a soldier on every street corner in Iraq and things would quiet down. The insurgents would simply hide their guns under the bed and wait their chance. After a few months the GIs would go home, the bad guys would dig out their guns and the insurgency would start up again. Then we’d have to do it again, it didn’t work in Vietnam it won’t work in Iraq.
So what is needed in Iraq policy? Some honest and realistic thinking. It’s time for our leaders to realize that we won’t create democracy over night in Iraq so it is time for a workable realistic political settlement. Perhaps a Shiite theocratic dictatorship with military, security and police forces powerful enough to crush the insurgents something like Franco’s Spain that could develop into democracy in the long run or breaking Iraq up into three different states, Shiite, Sunni and Kurd.
Unfortunately we’re not going to see such a solution until we abandon the delusions that come from a dangerous mix of wishful thinking and misplaced idealism.

Colorado Politics

Colorado Politics
By Daniel G. Jennings
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Democrats in Colorado and the nation are making a terrible mistake by not launching a savage attack upon Ward Churchill, the foolish prof at CU Boulder who can’t tell the difference between Sept. 11 victims and Nazi war criminals.
Churchill is an arrogant elitist who never sweats, earns a six figure income, and spends his time denigrating the common folk and their values. In other words everything Democrats should be against. Yet Colorado’s Democratic establishment either pretends Churchill doesn’t exist or defends his stupidity.
The Democrats have a hard time communicating with common people these days because they take the side of the common folk’s enemies in the culture war. Imagine what would happen if Colorado’s Democratic establishment launched a destroy Ward Churchill at all costs campaign. Well first Democrats would get a lot of street level cred among working folk they’d actually be standing up for Joe Six-pack and his values not drinking lattes with the college professors and trading jokes about how ignorant average Americans are. Second, a lot of Republicans would have heart attacks they get Joe Six-pack’s vote because Joe Six-pack knows they’ll fight for America. If Joe Six-pack thinks that Democrats will stand up for both his overtime pay and his country he’ll vote Democratic.
After all why should working guys and gals vote for somebody who sides with the arrogant elite.? Average people know that the morons who call America evil will ship their jobs overseas next week. Today’s Democratic politicians don’t seem to grasp this fact.
Of course the Democratic politicians of the past grasped it. In the 1950s the Kennedy family were big friends of Sen. Joe McCarthy. As a young lawyer Bobby Kennedy worked for McCarthy, JFK was a supporter of McCarthy in the US Senate, and the boys’ father Joe Kennedy gave money to McCarthy. This didn’t hurt the Kennedy’s or stop JFK from being elected president. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton got elected President partially by attacking a rapper named Sister Souljah who told her fans to kill police officers. Notice that JFK, RFK and Slick Willy are all liberal icons nowadays. Maybe it’s time for Democrats to stop listening to college professors and start reading political history.
Referendums C & D
Where do I stand on referendums C & D, the issues the State Legislature has placed on the state ballot to restore their powers to impose new taxation? Frankly folks I oppose them because I smell a rat here.
The legislature’s logic in putting this nonsense on the ballot is simple. They want to overturn the Bruce or TABOR amendment which requires that all tax increases be put to a vote of the people. The argument is that without increased taxation powers the legislature can’t address the state’s budget crisis, and won’t have money to adequately fund things like education, transportation and prisons.
This is nonsense folks, the TABOR amendment gives the legislature a simple solution to this problem. The legislature could simply ask the voters to raise taxes or approve new taxes to pay for these things. That’s what the RTD did when it needed money to expand the light rail and guess what voters approved that. In fact they did it twice approving both T-Rex and FasTracks. The same with the district that finances the museums and cultural facilities in Denver.
If the state needs money for universities, roads, public schools, prisons, etc. Simply place measures on the ballot asking for a tax increase to pay for them. The state constitution gives the legislature the power to do this. Yet our brilliant legislators won’t use that power? Why?
One big reason comes to mind: if there are more referendums on the ballot special interests will spend their money on the initiative process rather than on lobbying the legislature. Legislators would rake in less money in the form of graft and campaign contributions. More than a few legislators would have to spend more time at their regular jobs at the used car lot or the personal injury law firm to pay their bills. Obviously legislators don’t like this.
The initiative process is far harder to influence than the legislature, if a legislator doesn’t vote the way the moneymen want they can stop writing checks to him. There is no way to exercise such control over the average voter. You can spend money on advertising but advertising is just as likely to alert voters to referendums they will vote against than promote them. Special interests want a clique of good old boys at the state capitol they can ply with steaks and cocaine not average people who will vote the way their conscious tells them.
Beyond that the last thing the politicians want is money dedicated for one purpose by voters. If voters approved a tax increase for education, the legislature wouldn’t be able to steal that money and say spend it on a new prison built by a big corporation that writes lots of checks to legislators and their cronies. Legislators want a blank check they can spend on anything.
Even more hypocritical than the legislature are the media and self proclaimed community leaders. If these people really cared about education or transportation in Colorado, they’d forget about the legislature and start collecting signatures for ballot initiatives for tax increases to pay for such things. The truth is that the journalists, politicians, business leaders and community activists promoting C and D are nothing but shills for special interests who want the key to the state treasury.
Fortunately the people of Colorado are not complete morons. According to polls 66 percent of our state’s population plan to vote against C & D. The average person sees this garbage for what it really is: a power grab by professional politicians and their paymasters.
My guess is that Referendums C & D will go down to defeat and the politicians will in a few months meekly put a series of referendums raising taxes to pay for specific items like education and roads on the ballot. These will easily pass and “The Budget Crisis” will end. Then “The Budget Crisis” will be exposed as the fraud it is and the folks behind C & D revealed as nothing but snake oil salesmen.

Iraq

What We Should Do In Iraq
By Daniel G. Jennings
The best course of action for the United States to take in Iraq is to break that troubled nation up into three separate states Kurd, Shiite and Sunni Arab.
We must adopt such a strategy because it is the only that stands a real chance of success. Creating a workable nation in Iraq without resorting to the kind of terror and oppression practiced by Saddam is impossible. A democratic capitalist Iraq wouldn’t work because the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis are distinct peoples with different histories and values. The only way Iraq was kept together was by brute force first by the British and then by Saddam his predecessors.
We must acknowledge the fact that Iraq is not a real nation it was an artificial administrative entity created by Winston Churchill back in 1919 so the British could easily administer the region. The British had recently conquered much of the Middle East from the Turks in World War I and wanted control over the strategically important areas. This arrangement worked for 36 years until 1956 because the British were willing to use varying levels of military force to keep Iraq together.
Independent Iraq was ruled by Sunnis who were part of the colonial army created by the British. They were largely professional soldiers, policemen and administrators who had run the region for the Ottoman Turks. The Sunnis maintained their rule and stole most of Iraq’s wealth through brute force.
Attempting to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy is a fool’s errand that will fail and fail miserably. An American colonial regime in Iraq would only work if the United States were willing to resort to brutal oppression which fortunately it is not. Abandoning Iraq is not an option, a power vacuum in Iraq would destabilize the Middle East and lead to more terror attacks on the US and other nations. Nor is internationalization an option, the UN and Europe don’t have a magic wand they can wave to fix Iraq’s problems.
The best option is the one followed in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the former Soviet Union allow the nation to break into separate states. This process doesn’t have to be a bloody mess of civil war and ethnic cleansing as the case of Czechoslovakia proves. Allowing separate states can end ethnic cleansing and civil war as the case in Yugoslavia proves.
The United States should create three separate states in Iraq, one Sunni, one Shiite and one Kurd. Each should have its own democratic government, army, police administration etc. The US will provide training and other resources to these states. A small force of US planes and troops could be in place to provide peacekeeping and keep the states from attacking each other. Such a strategy is already is already working in Yugoslavia where peacekeepers backed up by airpower keep the states from warring among themselves.
Separate states in Iraq would work because they would give Iraqi soldiers and policemen something real to fight for. No Shiite, Sunni or Kurd is going to fight and die for the fraud known as Iraq. They will fight and die for their people, their faith and their community.
Obviously such a solution wouldn’t be perfect there are some groups in Iraq who want to keep the nation unified. Ironically they’re the ones fighting us the Sunni gangsters who want to go back to the good old days under Saddam when they were rolling in the oil money and the Al Qaeda terrorists who want to set up an Islamic dictatorship.
The good people who want a civil society in Iraq don’t want anything to do with our sham Iraqi democracy because they know it will fail. If we would help these people build workable smaller ethnic based nations to replace Iraq they would get on our side and help us.
Now, Iraq is doomed to break into three separate states the question before us is: will we use our power to make that process peaceful and constructive or will we let it become a hell of terrorism and civil war? The other question is how long will the United States keep trying to do the impossible and build a unified Iraqi democracy?

conversation

Covert Operations Conversation With Jennings
Question: You seem to be changing your opinion on the Iraq War do you now oppose the American invasion of that country?
Answer: No, not at all, the American military operations in Iraq were the right thing to do. I just object to the way we did it and how we are doing it. Instead of a massive invasion we could have done the job through special forces and covert operations like we did in Afghanistan.
Question: What exactly are you suggesting here?
Answer: I’m suggesting that we return to the kind of limited military operations we excelled at during the Cold War and in Afghanistan. Instead of massive invasions, do most of the work through proxy like we did in Afghanistan hire local soldiers to do the job. Send in a few special operations teams and CIA squads to organize and lead them. This enables us to defeat our enemies without massive military operations and lots of casualties. We developed excellent capabilities to do this during the Cold War. Capabilities we still have as the Afghan situation demonstrates.
Question: Can you give some examples of this?
Answer: Yes, for example the American involvement in the Greek Civil War of the late 1940s. President Truman didn’t send in troops he sent General Mark Clark and other advisors who reorganized, trained and advised the Greek Army. They led the Greeks to victory over Communist forces. Greece was never Communist. It had troubles but it never suffered as other Eastern European nations did. Or El Salvador in the 1980s, instead of sending troops, Ronald Reagan only sent military advisors who reorganized and retrained the local army. It defeated the Communists in the field without a massive occupation as in Vietnam. The victories in the Balkans in the 1990s where Americans worked behind the scenes and with air power to stop the war without ground forces. Or Afghanistan where American supplied and advised guerrillas humiliated the Red Army.
Question: How does this strategy relate to Vietnam?
Answer: Vietnam was a perfect example of what not to do. Instead of limiting aid to advisors we went in and fought the war ourselves. It happened because Lyndon Johnson refused to limit the war. LBJ refused to say no to the generals, just as Bush did in Iraq. Johnson refused to say no and we saw the result. Reagan got it right in Latin America by refusing to use the regular military except in Grenada where the war would be short and limited.
Question: If we have these excellent covert operations capacities why do we end up resorting to counterproductive use of traditional military forces?
Answer: It boils down to politics the military has to justify the vast amounts of money it spends on weapons and training. If covert ops can do the job without the vast expenditures that calls the whole military establishment into question doesn’t it? Backing up the Pentagon are all the defense contractors who profit from this spending and their allies in Congress. If all we need are special ops teams backed up by aircraft why should we spend money on armored divisions, infantry and the surface navy? Those are questions the Pentagon doesn’t want asked. After Afghanistan the brass got scared, real scared. So they had to justify their existence. It’s hard for presidents especially ones with no or little military experience to stand up to the brass and say no to them. After all who is the former governor of Texas who is dogged by allegations of draft dodging to say no to some guy with a chest covered with medals? The situation is made worse by the media where retired officers, professional experts, politicians, intellectuals and other armchair generals go on TV and criticize every move we make in the war. The constant allegation we don’t have enough troops in Iraq for example. Remember all the criticism that we let Bin Laden get away in Afghanistan because we didn’t drop the Seventh Airborne on Tora Bora?
Question: Are there other factors that mitigate against limited warfare?
Answer: Limited thinking and a lack of imagination. The general consensus in the media and the experts is that the only choices we have are accept the status quo or resort to all out war. This is the mantra of the peace movement and the intellectuals. The problem is that we have other choices, unfortunately they are rarely discussed because of politics. In the debate over the Iraq War the discussion was either accept Saddam or go to war? Nobody asked why can’t just send in a special ops team to kill Saddam and replace him with somebody else. Or why we didn’t just run Iraq through the Iraqi Army? Or Shiite religious groups. The only options given were things that we knew wouldn’t work, sanctions, the UN, our worthless European allies.
Question: What does it take to go to such a strategy?
Answer: In the Cold War it took the backlash against the Vietnam War and the destruction of two presidents’ political careers. Not to mention 60,000 American deaths. It also took a popular and strong visionary president namely Ronald Reagan. Reagan refused to accept the status quo and also refused to believe World War III was necessary to defeat Communism. He was ready to listen to unorthodox strategies and adopt them. He also had a consistent policy of limited military action. Reagan was also not intimidated by the military he was willing to tell them what to do. In the 1990s, Clinton did something similar but it was based on risk avoidance and only in some circumstances.
My guess is the mess in Iraq will force us to adopt such a strategy but we need somebody with the guts to adopt it. Probably a Republican because the only alternatives we get from the Democrats are do nothing and hope the Europeans can do something.
Question: What else mitigates against such a strategy?
Answer: The whole culture in Washington. The traditional diplomats at the State Department like all diplomats are dedicated to preserving the status quo to working with formal governments even in places where they don’t exist. The military is designed to wage massive wars, the intelligence establishment to gather data about traditional governments. You also have to actually work with other peoples, understand their cultures and respect their values that’s difficult. It’s much easier to preach at them about democracy from the top of a tank. Beyond that we are conditioned by the popular culture, and conventional wisdom to think of war as a massive battle on a formal battlefield, World War I, World War II or Vietnam. Even though that isn’t the reality of modern war. It takes a very intelligent and creative visionary person like Ronald Reagan to change strategies and overcome politics and bureaucracy. Reagan also stood up to the left and the peace movement he stopped them cold by refusing to play their games.
Question: Do you see anybody like that on the horizon?
Answer: Unfortunately no. With the present media environment in which every windbag senator, retired general, armchair strategist, and loud mouthed activist can get a national audience it’ll be difficult. To make matters worse, the Democrats like the Republicans seem more interested in building up bureaucracies than real change, John Kerry’s proposal for a US military police or constabulary force to do peacekeeping in world trouble spots, in other words recreate the British Empire? The last thing we need is a massive peacekeeping bureaucracy a UN Pentagon. That’s what Kerry and company want.
Question: Could things change?
Answer: Yes they will the mess in Iraq will make massive military operations politically unacceptable but we’ll still need to take action. That means we’ll be forced to turn to covert ops, special forces etc. Take the nuclear dispute with Iran if instead of a diplomatic battle and sanctions leading to war, we’d just sabotage the Iranian nuclear program we could avoid a conflict or sanctions which would hurt the Iranian people. Unfortunately there’s a massive bureaucracy at the UN and in Washington that needs a dispute over the Iranian nuclear weapons to justify its existence. My guess is the cost of such a dispute will force our leaders to seek other answers.
Question: How long will this take?
Answer: Too long, the Vietnam War dragged on for five years before Nixon realized it was a mistake and started troop withdrawals. During the Cold War the Pentagon was planning for an all out battle with the Red Army in Western Europe even though the Soviets were loosing the covert war badly. It’ll take near disaster in Iraq to get us to change strategies.
Question: Any final thoughts?
Answer: Yes, the old truism is that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That seems to be the case here. We seem to be repeating some of the same mistakes we made in Vietnam in Iraq albeit on a much smaller scale. Unfortunately, the stakes are much higher here. Losing in Vietnam just meant humiliation. A loss in Iraq would mean massive terror attacks on the US and other countries in which tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands would die. It’s time we started thinking and stopped reacting.

Covert Ops

Covert Operations, a Better Way Fight Our Wars?
By Daniel G. Jennings
The continuing debacle in Iraq has exposed the limits of our military power at a terrible cost. It has also caused to me wonder: is there a better way for America to fight it’s wars? Perhaps through covert operations that is secret means.
Events in Iraq prove that traditional military forces are not suited to fight the kind of wars will fight in today’s world. We can easily invade enemy nations, occupy trouble spots and quickly dispatch enemy military forces but we are having a hard time dealing with guerrilla and terrorist forces.
Since we can’t simply ignore our enemies and hope the United Nations or nonexistent European allies can keep the peace as the left seems to believe or rather hope or retreat into splendid isolation as right wing war critics like Pat Buchanan wish. Nor do peacekeeping efforts of the kind the UN and European powers favor seem to work as disasters in places like Rwanda and Haiti prove. Sanctions as the cases of Saddam and Fidel Castro in prove are a moral, political and practical failure. We’ll have to find another way to deal with our enemies, a limited means that doesn’t involve massive military forces and deaths.
One excellent means available to us covert operations that is the fighting of secret or proxy wars. Limited military operations of the variety we saw in Afghanistan in late 2001 combined with covert operations. In Afghanistan most of the fighting to remove the Taliban was done by native forces, the soldiers of local warlords backed up by US aircraft and a few special forces. This enabled us to conquer Afghanistan in a few weeks with minimal casualties and little bad publicity or international hostility.
Unfortunately, the lesson of Afghanistan was quickly lost when it came time to deal with Iraq we reverted to a 20th Century land war. This produced a nice show for the news media and allowed the Pentagon to play with its expensive toys. Yet it had disastrous long term effects in Iraq, the presence of large numbers of American troops fueled the insurgency. Bureaucrats and politicians in Washington were in a position to try and implement grandiose plans to rebuild Iraq and the Middle East in our image. A massive bureaucracy incapable of implementing real change was created in Iraq almost overnight and the US was put in an impossible position. It had to take responsibility for Iraq’s problems but was criticized for trying to solve them.
This of course didn’t have to be, if the US wanted to get rid of Saddam there were plenty of forces in Iraq capable of doing the job. The majority of the population are Shiites who hated Saddam and wanted to get rid of him. The nation’s Kurds were also hostile to Saddam and willing to fight him. Iraq’s army was composed of Sunni Muslims, who were essentially mercenaries who could have easily been added to our payroll. Local tribal and religious leaders who are the real power in Iraq could have easily brought over to our side. We could have used our covert operations structure to win these people to our side, (or rather buy them) and dispatched a special forces team to kill or capture Saddam.
Yet, this wasn’t done instead we insisted on a massive invasion and we are seeing the predictable results. Part of the reason for the invasion is geography, Iraq like Vietnam is close to the sea so the Pentagon can land large numbers of troops and large amounts of equipment. Afghanistan is landlocked and surrounded by countries to the US so the Pentagon was forced to get creative. In other words we got it right or partially right in Afghanistan and almost completely wrong in Iraq.
Iraq is a perfect example of the new world we are living in, one of Fourth Generational Warfare or Postmodern Warfare. In simple terms: war fought by entities other than nations or traditional military forces guerrillas, terrorist groups, etc. As William Lind and other experts have pointed out this is the norm in modern warfare. The best way to deal with such a situation would be through covert warfare.
We have the ability to conduct covert warfare on this level, in fact we have a long and successful history of it. Imagine what we could do if we spent the kind of funds we’re wasting on Star Wars Defense (which won’t protect us from anything) and heavy weapons on covert warfare? We could develop a potent covert force capable of waging and winning our wars cheaply and quickly with minimal casualties and little bad publicity for a fraction of what we spend on our present war machine, we should ask our leaders why we don’t?
Hopefully, the mess in Iraq will show Americans that we have to adopt different means of fighting wars and dealing with the growing chaos in the developing world. Perhaps covert warfare of some sort, such a creative strategy is possible but my guess is we’ll adopt it after a lot of death and bad publicity in Iraq. It took the catastrophe of the Vietnam War to show Americans they could fight win the Cold War on the cheap through covert operations, diplomacy, alliances, proxies and economic aid, etc rather than massive military operations. The war on terror seems to be following a similar course. Hopefully, the cost of such a lesson won’t be too high.

media

Is the News Media Denying Reality??
By Daniel G. Jennings
The recent behavior of the news media is perplexing to average people such as myself. What seem to be major important stories are being ignored while meaningless trivia is being played up as news.
Take for example, the Aug. 11, Denver Post, the paper’s front page stories included one on an attack ad aimed at Supreme Court nominee John Roberts and one on the lack of port-a-potties at Denver parks. This on a day when oil prices rose to $65 a barrel and Al Qaeda released a video tape in which a masked terrorist with an Australian accent threatened bomb attacks. Nor have the television newscasts given these stories much play.
Some observers would say these stories aren’t very sensation or there isn’t much interest in them. A masked terrorist threatening violence against America and its allies not sensational? Rising oil prices and a looming oil shortage not generating interest in a nation where the majority of the population drives?
Something just doesn’t compute here are the media and newspaper editors stupid? Perhaps, or perhaps the media elite is simply ignoring reality because it doesn’t like what is happening in the world.
Take rising oil prices they threaten the economic and political order that keeps the media elite in power. After all oil companies, auto makers and real estate developers are major advertisers. Without them many newspapers and television networks might be out of business and many journalists forced to work for a living. How dare journalists upset major advertisers by reporting negative news.
Or terror, the world view many media elitists subscribe to is that the world be a nice peaceful place if those nasty Americans refused to engage in military actions. The existence of a violent terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, which is dedicated to waging all out war on its enemies just doesn’t square with this world view. It of course is easier to ignore news that disproves this world view than to report upon it.
Such denial of reality may make reporters feel good but it doesn’t change the ugly realities of the world we live in. Ignoring high oil prices, oil shortages and terrorism won’t make such things go away.
This denial will destroy the news media’s credibility average Americans angry at high gas prices and worried about terrorism wonder why such things are absent from the news. Many will figure the media is composed of fools or is lying to them.
The long term result of this denial of reality by the news media will be that the public will tune out the news media and turn to the Internet where people can pick and choose the news they want. Unfortunately, the media elite will ignore that trend too until they find themselves unemployed\.

Sue Animal Rights Loonies.

How To Shut Down Animal Rights Extremists
By Daniel G. Jennings
With racists and Anti-Abortion zealots on the far right largely dormant the major threat of domestic terrorism in the United States seems to be coming from extreme elements of the animal rights movement.
In particular from a fringe group called the Animal Liberation Front, FBI Deputy Assistant Director John Lewis and terrorism expert Aaron Mannes both identify ALF (no relation to the furry TV puppet seen on a 1980s sitcom) as a major terrorist threat. * ALF which started in England has resorted to arson, breaking and entering, and other violent means to achieve its goals. In particular this group of violent thugs has broken into farms and let loose animals causing millions of dollars worth of losses to farmers.
And Alf is becoming more violent, one of its spokesmen, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles surgeon, has called for the assassination of scientists who conduct research on animals. In a move reminiscent of extreme anti-abortionists, Vlasak believes it would be a good thing if somebody started shooting scientists who experiment on animals. Including doctors trying to save human lives.
Obviously ALF has to be stopped it has slick websites, a fashionable cause and sympathizers on the left. Including groups like PETA and The New York Times editorial page which has apologized for its actions. But how does one stop something like ALF this isn’t a foreign terror group composed of non-citizens who can be shipped off to G-Mo or a criminal gang that can be infiltrated.
One solution which comes to mind is law suits. The Southern Poverty Law Center effectively shut down a number of Neo Nazi groups including the notorious Aryan Nations by suing them. The Aryan Nations even lost its compound in Idaho to a woman and her son who were beaten up by racist thugs.
Perhaps some pro property rights group could sue ALF and its sympathizers on behalf of scientists and farmers victimized by animal rights thugs. Dr. Jerry Vlasak and others post ALF news releases reports of violence on their website sue them. Sue PETA and all the other limousine liberals promoting this nonsense. Name everybody involved, PETA, the arrogant college professors who promote this nonsense, Dr. Peter Singer and the rest. Even if the suits are dismissed the bozos will have to spend money defending their moronic cause in court. In particular the arrogant intellectuals, movie stars and others who promote violent extremism should pay the price for supporting it.
How long could the Animal Rights terrorists operate if no rich people were writing checks to them? Somebody is financing animal liberation so go after the money. Take the money away and terror will whither on the vine.
If the lawsuit gets dismissed just appeal. I can’t imagine the Remqhuist Supreme Court paying much respect to this nonsense. If we could win a few of these lawsuits we could set a precedent that could be used to shut down other violent extremists possibly even Islamic terrorists.
If the Bush Justice Department could be talked into filing such suits using RICO we might be able to shut down the entire animal rights network. Or at least force Animal Rights advocates to disassociate themselves from the violent fringe.
Hopefully, somebody will get the brains to sue the animal rights extremists and deprive them of their funding before they kill somebody.
* “There is Use for Violence in Our Movement” Article by Aaron Mannes posted on Tech Central Station on Aug. 2, 2005.