My last blog entry dealt with the recent decision of Federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor who claims that President GW Bush's efforts to monitor phone calls of terrorists is illegal. King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts in Washington State is yet another example of a judge who has taken it upon herself to create havoc by voicing opinions that are contrary to the best interests and desires of American citizens. Ms Roberts recently repealed a law (I-747) limiting local government property tax levy increases to one percent, saying the wording of the initiative was unclear. How about the intent, Ms Roberts? Was that unclear as well? The intent was pretty simple. LIMIT PROPERTY TAX LEVY INCREASES TO ONE PERCENT! That may be hard for YOU to understand, Ms Roberts, but it was apparently not hard for the 57.56 percent of the voters who passed I-747 to understand.

Where is the disconnect here? Why do judges feel they have the right to go against the tide of public opinion and turn the law into the enemy of the people? Is this a democracy or not? The initiative process is the purest form of democracy in action. Initiatives come directly from the people themselves so they should be considered the true will of the people, not merely the will of legislators and lobbyists.

As I said in my previous blog, the solution is to identify those individuals who are not on the side of the people and remove them from public office. Mary Roberts and Anna Diggs Taylor are two fine examples of where we can start. Remember these names and put them on your list of individuals to remove from positions of power.

These are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree, or disagree?

-Michael James Jaquish

In reply to one reader's question to my last blog (a retired USMC Col.), "When do you suppose the population of the USA will wake up?" my answer unfortunately, at least for a significant portion of our population, is probably never . The recent decision of that federal judge (Anna Diggs Taylor) that President George W. Bush's phone tapping of enemy phone calls to intercept terror plots is illegal is further proof that too much liberty is detrimental to our survival. Such opinions are extremely dangerous. We are at war and anyone who says we should not use every ounce of technology we can come up with to gather intelligence about our enemy is simply not on our side. I do believe Joseph McCarthy went way over the line in his efforts to black mark individuals in his anti-communist campaign following WW ll. We need to learn all we can from that incident and move forward with greater caution. But this is different. Unlike the cold war, we are currently deeply involved in an open armed struggle to preserve our culture and our enemy is very smart and adaptable and focused on targeting unarmed, defenseless civilians as well as our military. The enemy is extremely difficult to locate and totally dedicated to the belief that they have an obligation and a right to kill or convert the entire world or go to heaven trying. As radical as it sounds, I believe it may be time to begin identifying members of our own society who are either too ignorant to understand our desperate condition, or are aligned with the enemy. Laws of treason need to be enforced or new ones need to be enacted to remove such individuals from positions of power and incarcerate them, at least for the duration of this war. Unlike certain members of our own society, our enemy is smart enough to understand that opinions such as this Judge's play to their advantage. Incidents such as the public outing of CIA field operatives, revelations of US Government intelligence operations by newspapers and inaccurate pronouncements from politicians that we are involved in an ILLEGAL war are beneficial to the enemy's efforts. Such events severely damage our ability to mount a concerted effort to defeat our enemy and they allow our enemy to divide and conquer us with greater ease. They cannot and must not continue and must be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Over the years I have tried very hard to avoid aligning myself with any particular political group. But this war on terror has forced all of us to face our inner selves and make decisions that we may never have had to make otherwise. As the war continues (and yes. this IS World War Three) it is becoming apparent that our very survival as a nation may depend more upon the attitudes of conservatives than upon those of liberals. The irony and conundrum of course, is that our country is dedicated to preserving everyone's right to their own opinions. This is a lofty and worthy philosophy but when it comes to survival it may prove too costly a philosophy to preserve.

How much longer will we continue shooting ourselves in the foot? Americans have huge (and one may say. unreasonable) expectations when it comes to personal liberty. The attacks of September 11, 2001 changed things fundamentally in America. As this conflict proceeds we will eventually be forced to confront these issues. Delaying that confrontation will result in more loss of life and will risk more extreme reactions when that will leave deep scars on our own society for all time.

Those are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree or disagree?

On the surface, at least, today's events involving the interception of 24 suicide bombers intent upon blowing up ten planes somewhere over the Atlantic may seem to cast a pall over the author (James Fallows) of The September Atlantic's belief that we should declare the war on terrorism won and move on to dealing with individual acts of anarchy as they crop up. But on second review, one is also faced with the fact that we (the western world and our greatest partner in the struggle... the UK) DID stop this most recent terror event from taking place. This is perhaps yet further proof that we have "won" the war I suppose, but on the other hand... it makes it very clear there will still be many battles ahead.

No matter what you call it, in the end, a snake is still a snake. And this snake is alive and grabbing everyone in reach because somehow, in our ignorance perhaps, we failed to care for it properly and then let it out of the cage. The cage has been obliterated by the advance of technology that has shrunk our world to the point where every person can reach out and touch anyone around the globe. What may have seemed like a wonderful technological gift at first has proved to be the cradle of our enemy and that enemy is and will continue to reach out and strike until it is subdued with diplomacy or obliterated entirely.

I do not believe that diplomacy will work with this enemy. I wish it would, but in order for diplomacy to work, your enemy has to be willing to sit down and discuss and negotiate. Negotiation implies compromise. Our enemy hates everything America stands for and all the freedoms we hold dear. What freedom would you be willing to give up in the name of diplomacy... women's rights? Democracy? Freedom of religion? Freedom of speech? Even if we gave up all those things and converted to Islam, our enemy would still consider us unworthy.

This is not a conflict like any other. Unusual events require unusual solutions. In hindsight I agree that Afghanistan was necessary and that Iraq was a mistake. But the snake is out of the cage now so we have to deal with it.

One possible solution to Iraq that might pacify and ease the struggling a bit is the same solution I suggested back when we first invaded Iraq... divide the country into three different countries. It is the only logical solution and in the end the suicidal dynamics at work within that culture will likely produce that result anyhow, but not until many more thousands of lives are lost. It is not the answer to the fundamentalist Islamic issue that is driving terrorism but it is a factor that is contributing to the chaos and draining money and resources and lives from the West that could be used more effectively to fight the true enemy.

Those are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree or disagree?

August 07, 2006

There has been much speculation recently about Rush Limbaugh's statement that the war on terrorism constitutes world war three. I agree with Rush. The definition of a world war is a war that covers the entire globe. It appears obvious that the war on terror has accomplished that minimum requirement.

Terrorism is defined as any action designed to strike terror into the hearts of the victims. In that respect, our enemy has accomplished their goal. America has been experiencing the results of this since September 11, 2001 and much of the rest of the civilized, free world has been experiencing it for many years before those terror attacks. Does this mean our enemy is winning this war? I do not believe so. Despite all the mistakes and setbacks, all the evidence is supporting the fact that America's retaliatory efforts at home and in the middle-east have been successful in fractionating and disabling Al Qaeda's ability to directly supervise and organize attacks. Splinter cells have been isolated and now act more or less on their own and terror attacks are growing less and less coordinated. This can play to our advantage in the years to come but it will not eliminate the threat.

According to an article by James Fallows titled We Win, in the September, 2006 issue of The Atlantic, The greatest threat to American civilization lies not in the threat of terrorism, but rather, in America's reaction to the threat. Mr. Fallows compares what is happening now in America to the anarchist terror attack that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at the beginning of the 20th century. "The reaction they (the anarchist terrorists) provoked resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the destruction of a civilization."

This is the greatest power that our enemy has over us. Their ability to provoke us to over react and over spend until our economies are broke and bleeding. If we want to win this war against freedom we must work hard not to allow ourselves to be terrorized. Caution is acceptable. Training and preparation is acceptable. Terror and panic is not. We need to redouble, maintain and support the efforts of our allies to combat terrorism when they strike out as Israel has done by attacking Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon but we must avoid allowing our enemy to manipulate and control us.

Those are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree, or disagree?


-Michael Jaquish