Thought Quotient

Al Qaida is a political party?

You would think that by reading this AP story where the European Commission President had this to say…

“On Saturday, it will be a year since the start of the war in Iraq and the terrorist threat is today infinitely more powerful than before,” he said. “But Europe applies different instruments, suited to help our citizens leave fear behind: using politics and not just force, which has created further fear.”

Just yesterday, terrorists killed 2 foreign aid workers and 4 missionaries as they were working on a water project. These people were not soldiers but ordinary people only trying to help the Iraqis because they wanted to serve.

Bad news for Spain. I fear they have darker days ahead if statements by their new Prime Minister are an indicator of their grasp of this war on terror…

“I have said many times that the Iraq war was a great disaster, the occupation continues to be a disaster - it only generates more violence”

Like those missionaries working on that local water project…that was the action of an occupying group that was likely to incite more violence?

Can evil be trusted? Can you bargain with the devil?

The big news today is the election in Spain where the ruling Populist party was ousted and a candidate from the Socialist party is now in power. Why did I choose this title?

Incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to bring home the 1,300 troops Spain has stationed in Iraq when their tour of duty ends in July.

Ok, many feel that terrorism is coming to Spain as a result of them backing the U.S. and sending troops to Iraq.

Spain’s Socialists scored a dramatic upset in elections Sunday, unseating conservatives stung by charges they provoked the Madrid terror bombings by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq and making Spain a target for al-Qaida.

Note: How did Spain provoke this? Did Abel provoke Cain?

If the attack is by a terrorist group that is trying to get Spain to leave Iraq and the Middle East, will the new prime minister’s policy of withdrawel from the region bring about an end to the terror? If terrorism is evil (who could argue that it’s not), then can evil be bargained with? Can evil forces be trusted?

Ask the people of Iraq. Terrorists are now killing fellow Iraqis as they stand in line outside of police stations. They are killing innocent people in the street just to bring terror and death to anybody that wants to work toward or fight for a stable, peaceful government in that war ravaged country. What did those men lining up outside the police station for jobs do to deserve death by another Iraqi who strapped explosives on themselves or set off a car bomb? Those Iraqis are not the American, British (or Spanish) forces that are in that country? I thought the enemy was the foreign troops on their soil? Once again evil is proving itself to be more wicked and insidious than can be imagined. Evil respects no one or no thing.

Don’t these kinds of bargains look familiar?

Just as Satan promised Eve that she would not die, IF ONLY she would take a bite of the forbidden fruit FIRSTt when Satan promised Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world IF worship him.

The Root of ‘the Passion’ controversy…

Christopher Hitchens was on tv recently discussing an article he had written about Mel Gibson and his film ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ Describing Gibson, he said…

“Yes, he�s a fascist and he�s an ignorant peasant and a superstition monger.”

All of this controversy about Mel and this movie has been analyzed and determined to be a lot of different things but the bottom line is this…
it is not a political issue, it is not a social issue, it’s not even a personal issue… as much as it may sound like one. This is a spiritual issue. There is no better example of it and Mr. Hitchens admits this himself…

“I am atheist. I�m not anti-Catholic. I am not anti-Protestant. I�m not anti-Greek Orthodox or anti-Judaism or anti-Islamic. I just think that all religious belief is sinister and infantile and belongs to the backward childhood of the race and that the great thing about the United States is that it�s a secular country with a godless Constitution.”

Like all men that have no use for God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ…they reject the teaching that they are sinful and in need of anything, they are doing just fine the way they are…

“Christians say we all nailed Jesus to the cross, not just the Jews. I say no such thing. We can�t make ourselves complicit in a crime we didn�t commit that took place as a human sacrifice in the 1st century.

If you can believe that, you can believe anything. Christianity further invites you to say, if you will plead guilty to something you didn�t do, we will forgive you for all the sins you did commit. I think you will agree, as a conservative, that that dissolves personal responsibility and morality altogether. That�s my view. “

It should by now be fairly obvious that Hitchens (and others who are saying similar things) are not criticizing Mel Gibson or the movie, they are criticizing the Gospel and therefore rejecting Jesus Christ.

We fought a war in Iraq and all we got was this lousy, liberal cynicism!

So where are the WMD’s? This is a staple of liberal commentary -

like here…

No WMDs were unleashed on our troops or American cities. Because, well, there weren’t any, even though the danger (but not, mind you, the “imminent” danger!) they posed was the major excuse for the war in the first place.

or here…

Where are the WMD?
With each passing day it appears more likely that Saddam Hussein did NOT possess usable weapons of mass destruction, and therefore did not pose an urgent threat to US, regional or international security.

What’s the problem? It’s looks like John Kerry knew where they were back during the Clinton administration. Here are some excerpts from a Kerry speech on the Senate floor on October 10, 1998…

“They raise questions of the most serious nature about the preparedness of the international community to keep its own commitment to force Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, and the much larger question of our overall proliferation commitment itself.
…
For the United States and Britain, an Iraq equipped with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons under the leadership of Saddam Hussein is a threat that almost goes without description, although our current activities seem to call into question whether or not one needs to be reminded of some of that description.
…
If the United States and the United Nations retreat in any way on Iraq, if we are prepared to accept something less than their full compliance with the international inspection requirement that has been in place now for 7 years, it will be difficult to understand how we will have advanced the cause of proliferation in any of those other areas that I just mentioned.
…
I would point out also that there are experts on Iraq, those in the inspections team, those at the U.N. and elsewhere in our international community, who are very clear that Saddam Hussein’s first objective is not to lift the sanctions. His first objective is to keep Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program–that will come ahead of all else.
…
It is about eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction–chemical, biological, and nuclear
…
In recent conversations that I had with Chairman Butler, he confirmed that Saddam Hussein has only this one goal–keeping his weapons of mass destruction capability
…
In February, when we had an armada positioned in the gulf, President Clinton said that `one way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line.’ “

Bush and Kerry Divided on Most Issues

This election will be one an easy one for liberals and conservatives. The distance between where President Bush and John Kerry stand on the issues couldn’t be greater. We will be studying and analyzing this in the coming months as the election debate heats up.

Kerry says flatly he’ll only nominate Supreme Court justices who agree with his views in favor of abortion rights.

Contrast this with what John Kerry said on the Senate Floor on January 10, 1995…

“As we changed from the majority to the minority, the new majority came in and, as is perfectly appropriate, they did a great deal of new hiring. I have no problem with that. I have been here in the majority and then the minority, and I have gone back and forth four times. I know a lot of staff changes with that. But I was surprised by news reports that the Republican Study Committee required prospective congressional employees to take an ideological litmus test, not so they could be hired but they had to take it before they could even be listed with a placement service.

Mr. President, I think Senators know me well enough to know this is not partisan. I would object to this whether Republicans or Democrats did it. I do not know whether these questionnaires are legal under Federal laws or the rules of the Senate, but they smack of McCarthyism while I was a teenager during the fifties. I know enough about McCarthyism to know how destructive to human beings and the sense of the public comity loyalty oaths can be.”

Here Kerry is saying this kind of litmus test is practically McCarthyism! Liberals’ position on these kinds of issues all hinge on if they are in the majority and in a position of power or if they are in the minority.

Here are some more headlines from the AP…

Kerry Wants Deeper Middle Class Tax Cuts

John Kerry Meets With Dean; Edwards Next

Boy, it sure looks like Bush is in a ‘blasting’ mood these days! Why do the headlines with Bush have such colorful language, when the others are more matter-of-fact? Surely John McCain is capable of ‘blasting’ Baseball over their steroid policy. Instead he just warns them. Can Bush just warn the democrats over their attacks on the economy? Can the word blast ever be used as something other than negative? And what about this Ohio trip he made? That’s a loaded headline if I ever saw one. It sounds like he might as well concede the election already.