Author Archive | Elan Journo

Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of “diversity.” Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that “enriches” the curriculum. But is it? With the world’s continents bridged by the Internet and global commerce, multiculturalism claims to offer [...]

Watching video of the Twin Towers imploding, we all felt horror and outrage. We expected our government to fight back–to protect us from the enemy that attacked us on 9/11. We knew it must, and could, be done. Fighting all-out after Pearl Harbor, we had defeated the colossal naval and air forces of Japan. But [...]

In his address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama said that “We cannot shun the negotiating table” in conducting our foreign policy. He’s previously elaborated that “if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.” And Iran’s president Ahmedinijad tentatively welcomes “talks based on [...]

Imagine that your neighborhood is overrun by a gang. These brutes are wielding crowbars, knives, and pistols in a frenzied spree of home break-ins and mugging and murder. Now suppose the police reveal that their grand strategy for dealing with this gang is to block them from getting submachine guns–as if without such weapons, the [...]

It’s staggering to think that as we march toward a seventh year at war, Iraq (let alone Afghanistan) is hardly an issue on the campaign trail. Of course, nobody has forgotten about the war. But there’s been no substantive debate on it, either. John McCain, echoing many conservatives, regularly touts the supposed gains of the [...]

On his recent visit to the Middle East, Vice President Cheney voiced the Bush administration’s belief that a Palestinian state is “long overdue” and vowed to help make that goal a reality. Many conservatives and liberals agree with the administration that America should help fulfill the long-deferred Palestinian aspirations to statehood. The idea is that [...]

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has, we’re told, upended Washington’s foreign policy. “Our foreign policy has relied on her presence as a stabilizing force. . . . Without her, we will have to regroup,” explained Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in the Washington Post. “It complicates life for the American government.” But in fact U.S. policy [...]

Few reports about the Islamist threat are more alarming than the situation right now in Pakistan–a nuclear-armed country that Washington hails as a “major non-NATO ally.” Having supported Musharraf’s regime, Washington is now scrambling–pressing Musharraf to share power with opponent Benazir Bhutto, then insisting that he’s “indispensable,” but also considering whether Bhutto would be better, [...]

Ever since President Bush’s you’re-either-with-us-or-with-the-terrorists speech in 2001, his administration has been regarded as shaping its defense policy according to black-and-white moral judgments. If you haven’t already been convinced that that speech was empty rhetoric, last week offered another depressing piece of evidence. Washington refused to oppose, or even protest, Libya’s election to a seat [...]

On the anniversary of 9/11, we are reminded that the forces of Islamic totalitarianism continue to threaten our lives. What should we do to protect ourselves? Depressingly, today’s prevailing answer is to urge some form of “diplomacy”–and rule out as inconceivable the one option our self-defense demands: a war to defeat the enemy. If, like [...]