COLUMN: Key to peace? Do nothing

All across Lebanon today, innocent men, women and children are mourning the loss of family members killed by American-made weapons wielded by Israeli soldiers. Lebanese government officials estimate more than 600 civilians dead in the fighting.

If you still have doubts as to why terrorists target the United States, you are simply not willing to see the truth.

As long as the United States continues to manufacture and sell weapons that kill Muslims, we will remain targets of terrorism.

I will not begrudge Israel the right to defend itself. Let us not forget, however, that Israel itself was founded with the help of terrorism, so Israel’s claim of moral superiority in the conflict rings hollow.

Besides, Hezbollah is the monster to Israel’s Dr. Frankenstein. The group formed in 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Only the United States and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization while most of the world sees it as a legitimate resistance movement and political party.

In Rome, world leaders gathered Wednesday and agreed to create yet another multinational peacekeeping force that has absolutely no chance of keeping the peace.

Beyond that, there could be no real agreement as European diplomats want an immediate cease-fire while bloodthirsty U.S. officials want Israel to continue the war a while longer as part of President Bush’s ill-fated, ill-considered, amorphous War on Terror.



Read more!

COLUMN: Right veto, wrong reasoning

While it was gratifying that President Bush finally found his veto stamp after occupying the White House for nearly six years, it is unfortunate that he did it for all the wrong reasons.

It is unclear if Bush vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act out of ignorance of the importance of human embryonic stem-cell research or if he was simply pandering to his religious base in hopes of salvaging some of his coattails for the upcoming November election. Most likely it was a combination of the two.

Whatever his reasoning, he certainly did not do it out of some philosophical opposition to the use of tax dollars for something that should clearly remain in the private sector.

There is no argument that human embryonic stem-cell research could perhaps be the most significant human scientific endeavor ever undertaken. Stem-cell research has the potential to dramatically improve the quality and quantity of human life.



Read more!

COLUMN: Losing the war on terror

The older I get the more obvious it becomes that the people running the world are largely idiots. I don't mean that in a derogatory sort of way, either.

It's just that when I was younger and more naïve, I believed that, regardless of their public actions and words, those in power really knew what they were doing.

However, as I have gotten older, a little wiser, and more knowledgeable about the workings of power, I realized these people probably have less common sense than your average sea monkey. Most of them spend so much of their lives earning all those high-powered degrees that they have no concept of how real people think.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of terrorism.

For example, after the tragic and deadly attacks in India last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed to fight terrorism (sound familiar?), saying the government "will win this war against terror."

President Bush and his cronies continually make the same ridiculous claim, though they take the idiocy a bit further and try to claim that we are fighting terrorism in Iraq when, in reality, we are merely encouraging terrorism and providing a great training ground for budding terrorists.

The reality is, you can't win a war against terror. Terrorism has been around for centuries for a reason: it is effective. There is no better way to fight a far superior force than terrorism. In fact, British authorities probably considered many of the tactics used by the rebels during the American Revolutionary War as terrorist actions.


Read more!

COLUMN: Scrap the space shuttle

As a boy, I remember hearing the rumble of a low-flying airplane above my home. I ran outside and was shocked to see a Boeing 747 with the space shuttle Columbia perched on top. The shuttle and its ferry were landing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for a layover on its way to Cape Canaveral, Fla.
That was when the shuttle was new.

On Independence Day, the space shuttle Discovery launched, after a string of delays, on its 32nd mission to space and the 115th flight of a space shuttle. It also was the 18th space shuttle flight to the International Space Station and only the second flight since the Columbia explosion in 2003.

Astronomy in general, and space exploration in particular, has always held a certain fascination with me. I guess that is the result of growing up during the Cold War and being born before man sullied the moon with his footprints.

Decades later, our space program is moribund, still using a spacecraft designed in the 1970s, before the personal computer, the Internet or “American Idol."


Read more!

COLUMN: Flag doesn't need protecting

While Tuesday's vote in the U.S. Senate defeating the chronically occurring flag-desecration amendment was a victory for liberty, it was certainly nothing to cheer.

The 66-34 vote was only one shy of the required two-thirds majority necessary to send the would-be 28th Amendment to the 50 state legislatures for ratification. That 66 percent of U.S. senators were willing to curb our freedoms simply to protect a symbol is a portentous event for our liberty.

Perhaps most disturbing is the way senators arguing for the amendment tried to spuriously claim they were doing this to honor those of us who have fought in America's many wars.

For example, Majority Leader Dr. William H. Frist said, "Countless men and women have died defending that flag. It is but a small humble act for us to defend it."

And Ohio Republican Senator George V. Voinovich said, "Many have fought to preserve and protect this country and have lost lives in selfless service to their fellow man. ... I will continue to work hard to ensure the protection of the flag becomes law."

They claim to speak for veterans and the sacrifices they made while at the same time trying to curb the very freedoms for which those veterans have fought.



Read more!