Pot Shots From the Grassy Knoll

The American Century HENRY R. LUCE (first published in LIFE magazine 17 February 1941) We Americans are unhappy. We are not happy about America. We are not happy about ourselves in relation to America. We are nervous - or gloomy - or apathetic. As we look out at the rest of the world we are confused; we don't know what to do. "Aid to Britain short of war" is typical of halfway hopes and halfway measures. As we look toward the future - our own future and the future of other nations - we are filled with foreboding. The future doesn't seem to hold anything for us except conflict, disruption, war. There is a striking contrast between our state of mind and that of the British people. On Sept. 3, 1939, the first day of the war in England, Winston Churchill had this to say: "Outside the storms of war may blow and the land may be lashed with the fury of its gales, but in our hearts this Sunday morning there is Peace." Since Mr. Churchill spoke those words the

In reading Michael Schuerer's book Marching Toward Hell , the author broached an intriguing subject. Those of us who have been laying the blame for the actions of radical Muslims on the doorstep of Islam have been castigated by opponents as narrow minded racists  (even though this has to do with a religion and not a race per se), Islamophobic, or seriously uneducated thus highly discriminatory. If what Schuerer writes is true, our 'war against Islam' may not be so impractical after all. Schuerer states that Islam, lacking a centralized authority in modern times (no Rome like leadership since the Caliphate ended in the early 20th century), Muslim populations relied on their local imams to direct them as to what was permissible in Islam. Over time, many of these Imams became corrupted by state leaders, thus the message they were imparting to their umma was not resonating with the congregation. It took the success of Osama bin Laden to break the followers away from the co

In Michael Schuerer's book March Toward Hell , the author traces the origin and rise of Islamism and it's penchant for violence. Schuerer writes that the first modern event that began the conflict we found ourselves in was the 1973 oil embargo and our support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. By failing to find an alternative to our dependence on foreign oil and our blind allegiance to a nation that stirs the hatred of Muslims world wide, we began to link ourselves to a violent future. In 1982 Hezbollah arose in Lebanon and began opening training camps everywhere. The U.S. knew about these camps but did nothing. In 1990 the King of Saudi Arabia made the monumental decision to allow western troops on Muslim soil and we haven't left since. In the mid 90s, the Balkan war raged and Muslims depicted themselves as innocent victims.  Eager to castigate Slobodan Milosevic as the reincarnation of Hitler, the West approved of the publication of Muslim victimhood. During this time

  What should be providing me with innumerable chances to laugh my ass off in fits of apoplectic irony, is instead another worrying sign that political correctness has run amok. In the past few months the bastions of elite liberalism, eschonced in the ivory towers of "do what I say, not as i do", have been under assault by disgruntled students waging a search and destroy mission throughout campuses nation wide, looking for racism, real or exaggerated. Finding "evidence" elicits cries of outrage and demands that the faculty and administration of the school crucify themselves to appease the angry mob. While I refuse to shed a tear for these martyrs to multiculturalism,  I can't help but grow concerned thinking of what these mindless protestors will do once they finish purging academia in their great Putsch? Who will be next?