Advocatus Diaboli

More Media Hypocrisy

Funny, when they were going in they were the Coalition of the Bribed. Now when they are discussing withdrawal, they are important members of the coalition clearly seeing the inevitable doom of the occupation!
This kind of thing just drives me batshit.

Flip Flops for Everyone!

OK, so as part of the ongoing bullshit manufacturing by war opponents we are now treated to John F'n Kerry telling us how having too many troops in Iraq feeds the perception that we are occupying the country and that we must draw down troop levels in order to succeed.
Anyone else remember when Senator Flippy campaigned a year ago telling us how the fatal problem with Iraq was inadequate troop levels?

Let the Games Begin

Well it looks like the first round of Fun With Filibusters is about to get serious. Justice O'Connor is going to retire and you can cue the liberal hordes.

Here's hoping that Bush manages to avoid the mistakes of his father re the choice of Souter as a member of the Supremes.

Kick the Chair

Well it looks like Dean's major role in the Democratic Party may be coming to a close. This news item certainly has the whiff of his doom.
If I figure this correctly, it really was a clever move by those Dems interested in a 2008 Presidential run to advocate for Dean's ascendancy to the DNC Chairmanship. Knowing full well that his mouth would inevitably get him in trouble, they manage to keep him from actively campaigning for himself since he's chairman while also knowing he will use all the rope he can get to hang himself.
Biden, Edwards, and I'm sure others should now be happily kicking the chair out from under him.

Non!

Well the people of France have voted, and the result is a setback for the EUcrats. Most amusing is the quote from Valery Giscard d'Estaing to the effect that countries that reject the treaty will be asked to vote again. This can of course be easily summarized as "the people will continue to vote until they reach the correct result!"
But let's not get too excited in congratulating the French on their rejection of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the EU Constitution. It seems that most of the no votes were cast as a protest against the laughably weak attempts to barely reform the socialist markets of Europe.
Any new version of the EU Constitution that is palatable to the French should prove doubly onerous to those who wish to see real economic reform and open markets.

Joys of the Garden

One thing I've come to enjoy lately is piddling around in the garden. I'm old enough now to admit that one of my vices is the inability to complete projects. Oh I can start the hell out of them....and get them about 95% complete, at which point I lose all interest. But there's something about the garden that is different.
Perhaps it's the relatively small amount of effort necessary to get big results...or the fact that the plants, once I do some diligence in getting the ball rolling, handle all that pesky "completion" duty. I do know that gardening is more of a process than a project.
I also don't discount the "magic" component of the garden. What other hobby do you get to take some <$1 objects, stick them in dirt, and a week later they start revealing themselves as aggressive living beings? Come home from work, take a peek at the ground, and be surprised that while you were burbling on the phone in the office, your plants were busy doubling in size. And you thought you worked hard.
Here's a pic of 10 day-old zucchini and cucumber seedlings in the current garden. Each large leaf is comparable to the size of your thumb.

By July these tiny seedlings will probably sprawl for 6 feet... and produce so much fruit that even my coworkers will be sick of zukes.

In Loving Memory...

I've always been a dog person. Sure I've owned cats, and one in particular stands out because the finest compliment I could pay to him was that "he's half dog." But dogs have always been the pets that really dug in and made themselves family for me.
After moving into a house in the country my wife mentioned that a friend just happened to have some labrador/golden retriever mix puppies to give away to a good home. Well a country home doesn't really qualify as "home" without a good dog, so I agreed to make a visit to look at some puppies to see if a suitable family dog could be found.
We had determined that a good short-coat black lab would be the perfect companion for our three kids and myself, since I could teach it to hunt in the fall and depend on it to be gentle and attentive to the children. Conveniently my wife's friend had picked out a fine specimen from the litter that fit the bill perfectly, and even named her "Velvet" because of her short and shining black coat. We were quite pleased with Velvet and began getting her ready for the trip back home when I spied a shy chocolate puppy looking at us with the big sad eyes that are reserved only for worshipfulness and getting out of serious trouble. At that moment I knew I had to have a second dog, and this one was it. The kids and wife could complain about the long-haired retriever coat on her all they wanted, the chocolate pup would be mine and I would name her Bobo... be quiet, this is not your dog.
On the ride home, despite the alien experience and seperation from her former home this little chocolate pup lay quietly on the floorboard without a whine or whimper. Once home she made herself comfortable and slept in our bedroom. Her sister kept us up for most of that first night, but Bobo just took it all in stride. That's pretty much how things went with the pups... Velvet would start trouble, Bobo would reluctantly join, if she joined at all, and inevitably if they were going to get caught doing no good she would be the one. Her sister was more devious, but Bobo managed to avoid major trouble because she was the master of the pitiful apologetic look.
Bobo was the first to discover that she could climb into the kids wading pool, and she did so often. It seemed a near-daily occurrence that the wife would open the front door to let the dogs in and there would be a gasp of horror followed by a vigorous scolding and a cry for towels to dry off two sopping wet pups who had a love for water and mud.
If I had to confess the truth, I'd claim that Bobo was the less intelligent of the two. She made up for it in outright affection and brains are overrated when compared to unconditional love. She was also most assuredly the lazier of the two. Velvet would be ready to bound out the front door, and Bobo would after much cajoling get up and shuffle out the door as if we had chained her to the coal cart for yet another trip into the mines. That is not to say that she didn't enjoy rough-housing with her sister, in fact she would often ambush Velvet and roll her on the ground before hopping up and seeing if Velvet would chase her. Invariably Velvet would do exactly that.
On a Saturday morning, about 9:00am, I think she was doing just that trick. I was at my desk going over a list of things I had to prepare for a trip that we would take later that day when I saw a farm truck pull up to our driveway. I'm used to that kind of thing because the local farmhands often stop by to comment on the Cobra kitcar I own, so I went to put a shirt on and get my boots for what was sure to be a gawker interested in jawing about the car. My wife answered the door, and I could tell by the look on the face of the kid that was standing on our porch that this wasn't about my car. I overheard "I didn't see her run out" as I came to the door, and felt my stomach drop into my shoes.
As I rushed out the door I could see the form of a dog laying in the road, and I knew it was Bobo. Velvet came racing to the house just as I was getting to the road, and the truck driver was in tow behind me delivering a stream of anguished apologies and explanations. My concern was that she was seriously injured and I would have to get her to the vet but seeing her up close I knew she was already gone. I can't recall a single word the driver said as I sat beside my dog and stroked her fur as she lay there dead. I knew that she had died instantly because of the unnatural twist in her posture that was the evidence of a broken back. One moment she had been goading her sister into chasing her, and then there was nothing.
After several minutes I got up and told the driver that he had done the right thing and there was no blame for an obvious accident. Then I walked to my wife and told her to get a blanket because Bobo was dead. I'm sure she knew, but hearing it said made it real I suspect and she broke down. I told her to say nothing to the kids until I could get the pup wrapped up and more presentable. She returned with the towel, and I made the long walk back to our dog. I apologized to her as I gently picked her up and wrapped her in the blanket before laying her in the cardboard box. Then I told my wife to tell the kids what had happened. The response was as predictable as it was terrible, and after the initial shock wore off I suggested that they might want to write letters that we could bury with Bobo while I dug a grave near a stand of trees we had planted.
As I lay our dog into the grave and placed the letters the kids had written to her with her, our youngest daughter said rather quietly "she was our good dog," and that seemed enough of eulogy for everyone. After filling the grave and surrounding it with stones the kids had gathered, I went back into the house.
Later, while drinking one of what would be many beers that day, I thought about the meaning of the phrase "she was our good dog," and even now I can think of no epitaph more eloquent or that can convey such a strong endorsement of love and approval. A good dog is a breed apart from the rest of the rabble that occupy the world at any given moment, and every child knows that truth as surely as they know anything. A good dog comes padding into your room at night when the thunder booms and the lightning flashes like a strobe, and reassures you that she is guarding things just fine and that no bogeyman will be disturbing the house this night while she remains on duty. A good dog knows that the best place to be is trotting along beside you as you take a long and contemplative walk pondering the weighty matters of life. A good dog may look at you quizzically when you're behaving like an idiot, but she has the discretion to keep her opinions to herself and the abiding faith that even at this moment you are right, if not correct.
I can think of no man I have ever been acquainted with that is worthy of the honor that comes with the title "a good dog," and I suspect no one else has either. And so I think it is enough to say that we shall miss our Bobo deeply, for she was indeed our very good dog.

Pride and Pain

Tomorrow we will observe the one year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States of America that claimed the lives of some 3000 of our fellow citizens. Odd that it seems longer than a mere 365 days, except when confronted with the maudlin spectacle of television's predictable treatment of the events of September 11, 2001. I personally will be skipping the 24 Hours of Oprah that I know the networks have planned for me, I suggest you do the same. I do, however, feel compelled to make some mention of what it is we should be remembering and why it is important to mark events such as these.
No doubt we will reflect on the loss of so many ordinary men, women, and children whose crime it was to be American, and whose punishment was death. Many of us will be saddened, and no small number maddened, that the lunacy of so few could leave so many with immeasurable loss. But it is important to remember that the events of that day did not confine themselves to the tragic, but instead demonstrated the great character and hope of a people who refuse to lie down and accept the cloak of victimization that so much of tomorrow's programming will thrust at us.
It is perhaps too soon for the families of those on United Airlines Flight 93 to feel the well-deserved pride we feel for their loved ones, but in time I hope they are able to understand why it is we cherish the heroism of their kin. It is not through crass self-preservation or the sterile utilitarian calculus that forty people dying in a Pennsylvania field is preferable to thousands dying at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. We do not celebrate out of vengeance that on this particular flight the sickening maggots who intended to murder thousands were foiled. We recognize and honor the sacrifice of those on Flight 93 because we fervently pray that if faced with the choices they had we would rise up and follow the exact same path they blazed.
In a world where remote-control bombing and unmanned drones serve on the frontlines of warfare, there are those that argue the American people are too skittish and weak to be able to demonstrate physical courage anymore. The answer to that was not proffered by a mid-level Pentagon bureaucrat addressing an assemblage of journalists, but was instead forcefully demonstrated by that most American of patriots...the Minuteman. While the chattering classes of this country sat agape and uncomprehending as comfortable worldviews went up in the smoke of the New York skyline, the Minutemen were already rushing into the breach so that the enemy would know that it faced free men and women, fearful of death but unwilling to cower in servile terror at the hands of impotent thugs who express their power by abusing women and destroying that which they could never create.
America rarely produces the superman as hero, nor does it usually glorify such men with any seriousness. Certainly we have our comic books and our movies, but the heroes we truly venerate do not have a large S on their chest. Children learn of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, a simple man who nevertheless took it upon himself to risk home and hearth to roust American militia against the British Army. We speak of Sargeant York, a plainly simple and quietly religious man from the backwoods of America who proved that courage rarely bursts forth from the proud and boastful but instead resides in the hearts of those who do not think moral clarity is an object of derision. World War II was won by "The Greatest Generation", an appellation to an entire country who when confronted with the challenge of evil running amok in the world did not choose the cowardice of appeasement and isolationism as so many others did in that era.
So it falls once again to the average citizen to demonstrate to a world once again engaged in appeasement and moral relativism that courage comes from the recognition of evil and the moral strength to refuse that which evil wishes to obtain. We see that courage on Flight 93, from a small group of men and women who knew they were doomed but refused to dishonor themselves by acquiescing to evil's demands. In the very likely chance that a tear comes to my eye tomorrow, it will not be the tragic sorrow of the deaths of those who had no chance or choices but will instead be caused by the bittersweet pride and love one feels when in the presence of those who draw their lines in the world and proclaim to themselves with such force that the world must take notice, "this far and no further." Men and women from all walks of life, a random assemblage of citizens, who rise up and die on their feet taking to heart the earnest command 'do not go gentle into that good night. rage, RAGE against the dying of the light!'
We do not honor their deaths, we honor the manner in which they died. Death comes in its many guises, and if one is lucky it comes at very advanced age and takes us quietly in the night as we sleep. But if it chooses not to come for me in that manner, I surely hope it affords me the oppportunity to stand one last time and make my mark for evil to see, while setting my jaw in defiance and telling every sonofabitch who needs to know... "this far, no further."

List of Crew and Passengers of Flight 93

The Cult of the Pledge (or How I Learned to Rewrite the Establishment Clause)

Well it only took 48 years but the Federal judiciary in the guise of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance, as amended in 1954, is unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Apparently the addition of the words "under God" render the Pledge a wicked tool of a government hellbent on establishing a national religion and oppressing the religious beliefs of all citizens, especially those of atheists in Sacramento, California.
In writing for the majority opinion, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin (thankfully no relation) claims "A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus', a nation 'under Vishnu', a nation 'under Zeus', or a nation 'under no god', because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion." Later in the opinion it is asserted that the words "under God" amount to an endorsement of monotheism, which oppresses atheists and polytheists. Let us amuse ourselves for a moment by taking the Ninth Circuit's opinion seriously and address some of the arguments they raise.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" followed by the clause "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The latter clause is regularly ignored by the Federal government as it oppresses those whose religion advocates human or animal sacrifice, refusing to pay taxes, or the taking of psychoactive substances, which raises some doubts about the judiciary's deep concern with protecting all religious beliefs. As to the Establishment Clause, the intent of that particular addition to the Constitution was as a bulwark against the Federal government establishing a national church in the semblance of the Church of England, or the Catholic Church in other European countries. Amusingly enough, one of the founders of our Republic actually took seriously the Tenth Amendment and went on to help establish a state-mandated church in Virginia... a move which was entirely legal and proper.
It is a recent invention of legal scholars and the courts that the "Freedom of Religion" doctrine, encompassing that portion of the First Amendment referencing the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses, prohibits any display of religious iconography. In modern jurisprudence, it appears that the Freedom of Religion is now to be interpreted as the Freedom From Religion. So what next can we anticipate from the Ninth Circuit?
If the word 'God' offends the First Amendment protections of our citizenry, why then do we tolerate it on our money? Clearly the sentiment of the phrase "In God We Trust" (one assumes that after removing ourselves from the gold standard, God was all we had left to back our money) shows itself to be more onerous than the phrase 'under God' within the context of the Pledge of Allegiance. Note that the Federal Government refuses to allow us the freedom to print our own money so that we may escape this intolerable foisting of religion upon us, and demands that we pay our taxes with this icon of oppressive state-sponsored religion! Also, despite it being illegal in any school or public building, every single day that the Congress and Senate of the United States of America meets it is led by a religious leader in the oppressive wickedness of prayer! This madness must be stopped by our saviors on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals! Or not. Sadly, most of our country (including all three branches of the Federal Government) believes that we have some inborn Constitutional right to not be offended and in fact to be shielded from opinions, displays, and facts that disagree with our own opinions. The laughable assertion that the mere mention of "God" somehow establishes a national religion to the exclusion of all other faiths demonstrates the absurd state of legal scholarship in America today. If the Ninth Circuit wants to pick on governmental mention of God, let it take on the tax system that demands we tithe 40% of our earnings. As for me, I'm more comfortable with God... he only asks for 10%.

They Hate These Cans!

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attack on the United States many of the groups and individuals who find it intellectually fashionable to hate America wisely chose to remain silent for fear of an outraged backlash to their rhetoric. Alas, the silence was merely a tactical decision rather than evidence of a deeper re-examination of their strategic beliefs. We are now hearing from the salons and cafes of the Left, and their message is the same tired arguments wrapped in shiny new declarations of alleged patriotism.

The notion currently popular is that America has brought this attack upon itself through imperialist foreign policy initiatives over the last several decades, exacerbated by its dogged attempts to spread virulent capitalism throughout the world. Even conceding for the briefest of moments the characterization of America required to make these assertions, the "logic" of America's culpability in these attacks is akin to the argument that women are somehow at fault for rape. I, however, am not willing to concede much of anything to the Far Left on this point, nor much else right now.

Despite overwhelming evidence that yes, the militant Islamists wish to destroy western civilization, the Left instead chooses to provide an account of these actions that would have all the comedic entertainment of The Jerk were it not for the fact that real people have died, and more will die in the months ahead.
For those of you who haven't seen The Jerk (the movie, not your brother-in-law), Steve Martin plays a rather dim bulb who continually misinterprets the world around him. In one memorable scene, he is working at a gas station when a crazed loon who picked his name out of the phonebook decides to kill him. The first shots miss and hit several pint cans of oil next to Martin. Martin initially believes the cans to be defective, but when his boss points out the sniper Martin jumps to the logical conclusion that the would-be assassin hates cans. Everywhere he runs trying to hide from the sniper, there are cans... and while he escapes unscathed, it never actually dawns on him that the loon was shooting at him.

The first thing we often hear as an excuse for terrorist attacks against the United States is our support of Israel. The poor downtrodden Palestinians have been subjected to the uncompromising and hateful occupation of their homeland by war-mongering Israelis for over five decades, and America props up and supports this invader at every turn. Or not. You see, the Palestinians have never once demonstrated any peaceful intent to co-exist with Israel... not in 1947 when a Palestinian homeland was first offered (the Palestinians opted for exterminating Israel... bad choice), not in 1978 when autonomy was offered (and rejected by the PLO) as a part of the Camp David peace process that ended the state of war that existed between Israel and Egypt, and certainly not in 2000 when Arafat didn't even bother to respond to an offer from Israel that would have given the Palestinians their own state, including a shared Jerusalem as capitol. Oh, and let us not forget the two regional wars (neither started by Israel) involving Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and support from the other Arab nations that were launched to exterminate the state of Israel. In both of those wars, Israel not only was able to defend itself effectively, but also knocked back the invaders to the point that they lost territory to the country they were trying to invade. in a show of magnanimity no other in that region would demonstrate, Israel returned the vast majority of that ground in an attempt to live peacefully in the region.
Despite the fact that Israel has been under continual attack from suicide bombers and terrorists for the last year, it has shown restraint borderng on the absurd. You can rest assured that if Canada started sending suicide bombers into America every other day and lobbing mortars continually across the border, they would be rolled into the arctic or the sea in two days. Israel should have kicked Arafat and his Palestinian Authority (and the PLO prior to that) into the sea 30 years ago.

As for the laughable accusation that America is an imperialist nation... perhaps the Left should head down to their local coffee bar and book club, order a latte and peruse a dictionary. I'm unclear as to where exactly our vast empire is on the map, and I must've slept through the wars of aggression we've engaged in over the last oh, say, 150 years to gain territory and conquer recalcitrant unbelievers in Pax Americana. In fact, at last count we have engaged in four military engagements over the last decade that had no other purpose than to protect Muslims. Did we annex Kuwait while I was reading my latest issue of The Economist in the toilet? Were we exchanging land for food in Somali? Did we at least get the pleasure of conquering the people of Bosnia? How about Kosovo... can't we at least do some raping and pillaging there to burnish our imperialistic credentials?

How about the charge that we created Osama bin Laden? Well, that would be almost plausible if not for the fact that we weren't the ones invading Afghanistan in 1979... that was the Soviet Union. If we're going to be saddled with the likes of bin Laden, do we get to hang Stalin around the necks of those Leftists who sang the praises of world socialism and communism? Nevermind, I'll do it anyway.

My God, they hate these cans! Well, ok so they don't. What they do hate is the rise of western civilization over the last five hundred years or so. Militant Islamists would like to buy us all one-way tickets on the non-stop silver bullet express headed right back into the middle-ages. They're not interested in sitting by the campfire, holding hands, and singing kumbaya while fingering their peace symbols... they're interested in destroying everything and everyone they disagree with in a petulant attempt to erase history. As with all despotic ideologies, they want to remake humanity into some lesser shadow of itself so that it will fit their notions of what people should be in order to achieve their utopian society. And like every other despot, they are perfectly willing to murder millions, if not billions, in order to make reality fit their beliefs.... willing, in fact, to destroy everything except the flaws in their own beliefs. We are gazing upon a new generation of mass murderers, who more resemble the insanity of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge than the vile racism of Nazi Germany. They hate everyone, including shiny happy Leftists in their encounter groups, because their ideology, dressed in the piety of religion, has no accomodation for modern humanity.

Those Lovable Freedom Fighters (or Big Kisses to the Left)

I read with great amusement the decision by Reuters to cease referring to terrorists as "terrorists", since in the grand world of moral relativism one man's(or woman's, let us not engage in rampant misogynism so early in our rant) "terrorist" is another shemale's (the transgendered should not be left out) "freedom fighter." This is a noble sentiment on the part of Reuters, except for one or two niggling issues that I feel somewhat compelled to mention.

One would, on first naive blush, assume that in order to qualify as a "freedom fighter" one would have to, say, fight for freedom. Now thoughtful people can and will disagree on what basic freedoms one should fight for, but one gathers from the statements of Reuters that systematic repression of women, repression of all religions save one, the avowed destruction of all who disagree with one's viewpoint, and murdering innocent civilians whose only crime appears to be members of a far more free and successful society is a legitimate pursuit of "freedom". I beg to differ.

The Mujahadin were freedom fighters, given that they were engaged in battle with a hostile invader whose prior record of occupation was by no means loving and generous in its support of freedom. Members of the Resistance in France were freedom fighters, battling a hostile invader whose loving embrace was felt by European Jews to the tune of six million dead men, women, and children... all civilians whose crime was to share a religious and cultural heritage despised by the demented leadership of Nazi Germany. The Poles and Czechs were freedom fighters attempting to free themselves from the shackles of governments imposed upon them by hostile invaders (those would be the same kind souls that invaded Afghanistan), and alas there was no quick shipment of weapons and logistical support to them in 1968 prior to the Soviet Army crushing their uprisings.
Across the world and throughout the ages there have been men and women (and I'm sure a few transgendered) who have fought against repressive regimes both native and foreign in order to increase their measure of freedom. I would even entertain the notion that Fidel Castro was a freedom fighter in Cuba (albeit a horribly misguided one) in that he was attempting to replace a repressive dicatorship with a repressive communist totalitarian state, which at least to his distorted way of thinking was an improvement. I am not, however, willing to concede that the Taliban are freedom fighters. They are, in fact, at least as reprehensible as the Soviet puppet government of Afghanistan imposed after the last King of Afghanistan was deposed. You see, the Taliban were not (despite popular opinion by the literati) a product of the CIA's sponsorship of the Mujahadin. Those fighters are by and large either operating with the forces of the Northern Alliance or out of Afghanistan entirely after repression at the hands of the Taliban. No, the Taliban are an altogether different breed of Afghani guerrilla unit.
The Taliban come from refugee camps in Pakistan, where they attended Islamist schools and were indoctrinated in the hatred of the West that occurs in such institutions. Pakistan actively encouraged this breeding of radicals for use in their ongoing dispute with India over Kashmir, and benefitted internally by foisting the blame for the myriad failings of the Pakistani state on evil plots by the West to keep the Muslim states down. Pakistan certainly isn't alone in this deflection of blame game... Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Indonesia, Yemen, and several others are now reaping what they've sown over the years. It seems Muslim politicians enjoy demonizing bogeymen to avoid blame for their own failed policies as much as our own.
To continue our story, the gentle peace-loving Taliban invaded Afghanistan in 1996 with the financial and military support of Pakistan and began rolling back the rather ineffectual government that had been running the state since the withdrawal of the Soviets. The Taliban promised to bring order to society, but apparently were a bit vague on what that actually meant. After disarming the populace (a rather popular move by most despotic governments), they then began to enforce their peculiar brand of Islam. Women were no longer allowed to attend any form of schooling, were forced to cover themselves from head to toe, and cannot receive medical treatment since it is unlawful for any man other than a woman's father or husband to touch her. Viva la Freedom!
The destruction of ancient Buddhist relics made headlines and put the Taliban on the map for most people, but this was hardly the start of their religious intolerance. Once it became obvious to the residents of Taliban-controlled areas that life was not going to be especially bright and cheerful for religious minorities, people started flooding across the border to refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. This wasn't just Sikhs, Christians, Jews, and Buddhists heading for the border... it was Moslems. You see, the Taliban aren't content just to kill off evil Americans and Europeans (not to mention hundreds of black Africans in bombings against our embassies in Africa), they are interested in killing off other radical Islamists who happen to come from a different religious tradition. Iran, for example, would seem to be a prime choice for Taliban support given their virulent anti-Western views and long-time support of terrorists... but Iran is predominantly Shi'a Muslim, whereas the Taliban are Sunni... and the Taliban doesn't play well with Shi'as. This should provide you endless amusement in the evening when you hear about the latest call from the Taliban for a world-wide Muslim jihad against America.

Now, with such freedom-loving groups as the Taliban one would think it obvious that Reuters could at least contemplate the possibility, however remote, that these individuals are not especially interested in "freedom". Alas, no... and I believe I have some modest insight into why the Taliban can be considered "freedom fighters".

Perhaps you've heard the expression "blacks cannot be racist, because they lack power"? You see, America is an evil imperialist state foisting the evils of capitalism and western values on a powerless world. We are raping the planet with our evil industries and constant innovation of technology, while stealing all the wealth from the poor (as all good Leftists know, economics is a zero-sum game... nevermind that one tends to rob banks instead of bums when looking for cash) and forcing them to wear Nikes, eat McDonalds hamburgers, and drive vile polluting SUVs. The poor oppressed world is perfectly justified in murdering civilians of this country, because those civilians did nothing to support the Left in defanging the American monster.
This is our just reward for decades of opposition to the Left's dictator-of-the-month club, to our ignoring their prescient warning of global cooling (1970s, you remember...), our continuing refusal to embrace socialism despite its demonstrated failure as an economic and social system, and our militaristic attitudes towards those who threaten to destroy us.

Our sins are the litany of the incoherent anti-globalization rioters, radical environmentalists, peaceniks(whose idea of peace is surrender at any price), and the moral relativists. The "freedom" they seek is the freedom from a nation that constantly demonstrates the utter irrelevance and illogic of their beliefs, freedom from being reminded that their ideologies aren't accepted by a majority of people who are free to choose their own beliefs, and freedom from the very words that describe their failures.

So let us eliminate the term "terrorist" from our lexicon, and perhaps some day we will be free to eliminate the term "freedom" as well... it does carry all those loaded moral connotations after all.