Defeating an ideology
Last week, one of the interchangeable talking heads on TV stated that terrorism is an ideology and as such cannot be defeated by conventional means, i.e. militarily. His obvious objective was to denigrate the whole ‘war on terror’ effort now underway. Actually, he is correct in that specific point. What he and others fail to understand (or intentionally omit) is that by setting up democracy in Iraq and allowing capitalism to flourish the Bush administration is developing a competing ideology. Iraqi democracy, freedom, and a free market economy are the pillars of this ideology, which will trump that of the terrorists in the minds of the Iraqi citizens. DBJ

Farewell, Mr. President
If ever a President deserved the pomp and circumstance of a funereal of a head of state, President Reagan certainly did. He won the Cold War without firing a shot. He did it by escalating defense spending while getting (a) Saudi Arabia to boost oil production and (b) South Africa to boost gold production thus depressing market prices on two of the Soviets’ key exports. Not bad for someone regularly derided by the elite media as a buffoon. At the same time Reagan’s tax cuts resurrected our economy from a terrible recession and resulted in huge increases in revenues to the federal government. Had he gotten the Democrat controlled Congress to give him the spending cuts he requested the deficits could have been avoided. But, really, was our having a huge deficit that big a price to pay for taking down the Soviet Union and halting the worldwide advance of communism? DBJ

Nick’s Lesson – Part Two
As of this writing, American Paul Johnson has been murdered by Al-Qaeda terrorists. His beheading, just like that of Nick Berg’s, should serve notice to us all about the nature of our enemy. So, New York Times, enough already with the 30 straight front-page stories about Abu Graeb and the prisoner abuse scandal! We are facing an enemy that is capable of far, far more horrific acts than that of a few bozos at that prison. The Iraqi Foreign Minister himself said to a Fox News reporter last week that we Americans are overreacting to Abu Graeb and to think about it: First those responsible have been discovered and are being punished. Second, if they had been doing that to prisoners under Saddam they would have been promoted. DBJ