June 28 - Sorry for the non-posting; I've been trying to get to sleep before the full heat of the day sets in but that means I wake up when the family starts drifting home and using the computer.

I have to work tonight so will miss the president's message, but there are some things I wish he would say in addition to those he is expected to say.

I wish he would start by reminding us of the feared casualty figures in the taking of Baghdad at the start of Iraqi Operation Freedom. You'll remember, I'm sure, the urban house-to-house fighting scenario that was envisioned; I don't remember exactly how many casualties were anticipated but it was in the five digit range.

We were prepared to accept those losses. What does it say about us that we were prepared to accept a huge number of casualties in the early days of the war but can't handle what are undeniably lower figures over a longer period?

I wish he would say that the anti-Iraqi forces too understand Vietnam Syndrome and that they know that the steady drip-drip of casualties sap at our will and fortitude. The only issue is if we will capitulate to it or, recognizing their strategy, remain implacable.

Nothing has changed in our reasons for trying to change the unchallenged rule by despots in the mid-east. The mission remains the same. It takes effort and will to endure in any long-term struggle, and we have those qualities within us and need only to marshall them.

I wish he would say that "everything" didn't change on Sept. 11; that day was simply one event in a series of attacks on the U.S. What did change is that we had a president who responded with more than words.

I wish he would then remind those indignant over Rove's remarks about the response of many liberals to Sept. 11 that those recollections were accurate, and that perhaps they doth protest too much and that should we revert to pre-Sept. 11 policies we would be making ourselves more, not less, vulnerable.

I wish he would explain to Barbara Boxer that the reason he is unable to get European allies to assist in Iraq is because they are more anxious to appease the Islamofascists than confront them. It's not a failure in American leadership but rather the timidity of a European leadership that has yet again failed to confront fascism.

I wish he would remind Sen. Clinton that she had her chance to influence American response to terror attacks during her eight years in the White House and that, given the abject failure of the Clinton administration to adequately respond to those attacks, shutting up might be a good plan.

I wish he would go off-topic and state that it is deeply stupid to start the 2008 presidential campaign now, and remind Democrats that they would be wiser to worry over the mid-term elections.

I wish he would tell the US media to lay off the round the clock coverage of the missing girl in Aruba.

Lastly, I wish he would denounce the "no trans fat" Oreo and urge legislation that declares the original Oreo to be a national treasure and forbid tampering with or altering it.

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June 18 - Ex-pat Yank Robert Tumminello has written about the experience of living abroad during and after Sept. 11 and the accumulation of events that led to his becoming a blogger:

Yet what was also troubling was how so many in the British mass media were becoming increasingly at ease with "intellectuals", "scholars" and "activists" who possessed what can only be described as "interesting" takes on American policy and just about anything to do with Americans as people. Indeed, nothing was off limits: Americans are fat; they are idiots; they are racists; they are gun-lovers; they are hypocrites; they hate Muslims; they drive cars; the drive SUVs; they are Christians (oh, the horrors that some actually are Christians!). You name it. Of course, if an American so much as quietly mumbled "boo" about disagreeing with someone who thinks it's approved by a holy book to crash a hijacked plane suicidally into a building, he is deemed to be "intolerant".

There we were. Although the attitude was not universal of course, while in the U.S. during September and October 2001, as Americans tried to figure out what to do next and worried about what further attacks might be in the pipeline, in too much British and other media, Americans were simultaneously ceasing to be "people". Instead, Americans were more than ever before just human representatives of some Zionist-defending (or, just replace "Zionist" with a three letter word starting with "J"), environment rubbishing, globe-gobbling, imperialist corporate state. I also found increasingly that a large segment of the population here really did have no clue about America other than what they see and hear in that media. That is not a criticism; it's just a fact: Americans are, somehow, "a quick read"; everyone else in the world is, of course, "complex".

What the? Looking for somewhere sanity might be found (it sure wasn't in most newspapers, on radio, or TV), I retreated to the net. (Amazing that sentence, isn't it? Looking for sanity on the internet?)

Many of us have been surprised to find ourselves agreeing with the Republicans on a number of issues, and I think Robert summed up the reason:

While not a "conservative" technically, I believed -- and still do -- that we as Americans are all united by one thing: While we might argue over "policy A" or "policy B", overall America and democracy and freedom are worth defending. Period.

And I found that conservatives, far more than my liberal friends and increasingly even moderate Democrats, seemed to better understand that.

If the American media and pollsters are that disconected with Americans, how can foreign media not amplify that disconnect?

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June 15 - It didn't take long for a website dedicated to reclaiming the Sept. 11 memorial on behalf of those intended to be honoured to appear. You can visit Take Back The Memorial for the latest news on this project.

The opening statement says it all and with better restrained fury than I am capable of summoning.

It struck me that my letter(s) should properly go to the U.S. Ambassador to Canada and the U.S. Department of State.

Other ex-pats might want to consider a similar recourse.

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June 15 - First the past: Two E-Mails Contradict Annan on Oil-for-Food. Heh.

The June 13 NY Times previews a report from a Congressional committee on the U.N. which in its wording clarifies what the U.N. is:

In judging the United Nations and its lapses, the task force said it had focused on the responsibilities of the states making up the institution rather than just the institution itself.

"On stopping genocide," the report said, "too often 'the United Nations failed' should actually read 'members of the United Nations blocked or undermined action by the United Nations.' "

In a foreword to the report, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Mitchell said they were "struck by the United Nations' own receptivity to needed reforms" but added that the changes "must be real and must be undertaken promptly."

[,,,]

While the report noted the damage caused by the [U.N. Oil-for-food] scandals, it stressed that one of the consequences was that the United Nations' top leadership realized the need to make fundamental changes. "Real change may now be possible without resorting to the stick of U.S. financial withholding," the report said.

In its only reference to Mr. Annan's term in office, it said that a "fundamental criterion" in selecting his successor when his term is completed at the end of 2006 should be "management capability."

The report said that the institution's current problems stemmed from the politicization and bureaucratic unwieldiness of decision-making in the General Assembly and Security Council and "absurd level of member state micromanagement" as much as they do from failures in Mr. Annan's leadership.

While crediting Mr. Annan with proposing changes, the report faulted him for lack of follow-through. "The secretary general has often put forward good-sounding reform proposals then failed to push hard against predictable resistance from staff and member states," it says.

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June 15 - Canada: Armed Agents Needed on U.S. Border:

While U.S. Border Patrol agents along the frontier are armed, officers of the Canada Border Services Agency are not allowed to carry firearms. They currently are instructed to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or local police if they run into a threat and, as officers testified before the committee, that help is often extremely slow in coming.

"The committee has reluctantly come to the conclusion that if the federal government is not willing or able to provide a constant police presence at Canada's border crossings, current border inspectors must be given the option of carrying firearms," the report says. (Emphasis added)

Another proposal calls for Canada to allow up to $2,000 in duty-free goods from the United States by 2010, freeing up customs agents to focus on potential threats to security rather than acting as tax collectors.

"Canada needs a system within which personnel on the crossings are border officers first and clerks second — the reverse of the current situation," the report says. "Raising personal exemptions for travelers will help border officers better direct their attention to border security rather than revenue collection." (Emphasis added)

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June 8 - Debra Burlingame, the sister of the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, writes The Great Ground Zero Heist for today's Opinion Journal and states what should be obvious:

The so-called lessons of September 11 should not be force-fed by ideologues hoping to use the memorial site as nothing more than a powerful visual aid to promote their agenda. Instead of exhibits and symposiums about Internationalism and Global Policy we should hear the story of the courageous young firefighter whose body, cut in half, was found with his legs entwined around the body of a woman. Recovery personnel concluded that because of their positions, the young firefighter was carrying her.

The people who visit Ground Zero in five years will come because they want to pay their respects at the place where heroes died. They will come because they want to remember what they saw that day, because they want a personal connection, to touch the place that touched them, the place that rallied the nation and changed their lives forever. I would wager that, if given a choice, they would rather walk through that dusty hangar at JFK Airport where 1,000 World Trade Center artifacts are stored than be herded through the International Freedom Center's multi-million-dollar insult. (Emphasis added)

Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?

Those who call themselves intellectuals habitually climb onto the corpses of true heroes and cynically exploit them to advance ideas that have little to do with those things that motivate heroes.

It's not elegant phrasing, but it's how I feel. Am I wrong?

There are an impressive series at links at Mudville Gazette on this controversy and, given those who are rallying behind this cause, this is one formidable group of people who will not be deterrred.

Time to reclaim Sept. 11.

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June 8 - By a vote of 25-22, the House International Relations Committee passed a U.N. Reform Bill, short-titled The United Nations Reform Act of 2005 (.pdf) which ties U.S. funding of the U.N. to reforms in that institution.

From Fox,

Among the reforms demanded are new accountability measures, the establishment of an independent oversight board with broad investigative authority through the Office of Internal Oversight Services and new procedures to protect whistleblowers. The OIOS, under the bill, would have the authority to initiate investigations into mismanagement and wrongdoing, establish procedures to protect U.N. employees or contractors who report allegations of misconduct and establish policies to end single-bid contracts.

"Scandals involving the Oil-for-Food program, peacekeeping operations, the World Meteorological Society, the World Intellectual Property Organization, as well as alleged wrongdoing by high-level staff have illustrated the systemic weaknesses in the U.N.'s current oversight efforts," reads a statement from Hyde's office outlining the bill's main points.

U.S. lawmakers also want new rules for financial disclosure, including forcing senior U.N. officials to declare their financial interests. They also are asking for an ethics office to be created to ensure those officials don't take advantage of their position overseeing certain measures to line their own pockets.

The reform act also insists on more stringent codes of conduct for U.N. peacekeepers and stronger investigation of allegations of rape and abuse on U.N. missions. It mandates that the United Nations adopt a single, enforceable, uniform code of conduct for all personnel serving in peacekeeping missions and that peacekeepers are trained on the requirements of that code. The code also should be translated into the native language of the peacekeeping troops, the bill says.

Additionally, the Hyde bill calls for the creation of a centralized database to track cases of misconduct to make sure those individuals aren't sent on future peacekeeping missions. Alleged misconduct should be independently investigated by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Office of Internal Oversight Services, according to the bill.

U.N. officials responded as one might expect:

The United Nations would not comment on specific reforms, but U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the organization itself have been "very clear" on the issue of tying U.S. funds to U.N. reform and that "withholding as a tool for reform is not one we feel works."

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