The following is the transcript of a “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly” program which ran on Public TV on July 17, 2007. Pastor David Whitney –- in addition to being the Pastor of the Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, Maryland — is also a Senior Instructor at “Institute On The Constitution.”

 

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, anchor: Few issues touch a raw nerve in American politics like gun control. It could be one reason the debate is rarely waged from pulpits. But often the issue is not far below the surface in worship communities—particularly those hit by gun violence, as correspondent Lucky Severson tells us in this report.

LUCKY SEVERSON reporting: And your son was killed right over here?

Ms. JACKIE ROWE ADAMS (Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E.): And my son was killed right there on the steps where my parents was living. I left him that morning. He said, “Ma.” Gave me a kiss. He was 17 at the time. And, I mean, you would never imagine that he wasn’t coming back home.

SEVERSON: Jackie Rowe Adams belongs to a New York City group of women called Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. Their purpose is to stop gun violence. Those who belong have paid a very dear price. Each had at least one child killed by guns in Harlem.

Ms. ROWE ADAMS: Eighteen years later, who would’ve ever imagined that I would lose another child to gun violence? A 13 year old killed my son—robbery. From what I understand it was robbery. Shot him one time in the head.

SEVERSON: Like many of the 41 murders in Harlem last year, most were committed with illegal guns, double the gun deaths from a year before.

Unidentified Woman: Because we were out here last summer and saw a shoot out right on the corner like it was the OK Corral.

SEVERSON: When her sons were killed, Jackie says at first she was angry with God but now she credits God for transforming her anger into a cause.

Ms. ROWE ADAMS: I woke up one morning and I said, No! Enough is enough!' My husband said,What’s the matter?’ I said, I can't take it.' I said,What is the elected officials doing? What is the churches doing?’

SEVERSON: The influential Riverside Church on Harlem’s west side is trying to do something. Jackie met with Reverend Arnold Thomas to offer her group’s help. He’s registering churches around the country to participate in a God Not Guns Sabbath the weekend of September 29th and 30th.

Reverend ARNOLD THOMAS (The Riverside Church): Americans need to have a serious conversation about how guns have contributed to, really, the destruction and the continuing demise of our way of life and our culture.

SEVERSON: Approximately 30,000 Americans are killed every year by gun violence, including homicides, suicides and accidental gun deaths.

Rev. THOMAS: We’re dealing with staggering statistics. And so that says to me that America is a nation at war. We are at war with ourselves.

SEVERSON: Why have churches been so conspicuously silent on this subject?

Rev. THOMAS: I think because churches are also political animals, and we are—we are subject to the fact that many of our parishioners advocate the use of guns.

SEVERSON: Pastor David Whitney ministers the Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Maryland. He says the American public would be surprised at how many pastors have a different view of guns from that of Reverend Thomas. They favor them.

Pastor DAVID WHITNEY (Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church): I would say the churches should be involved in helping arm and train people to use handguns effectively.

SEVERSON: Why would you need a gun?

Pastor WHITNEY: As soon as a handgun appears, it never even has to be used. The criminal’s a coward and he’s going to flee as soon as he recognizes he’s faced with an equal power with himself.

SEVERSON: Can you understand how some might find a pastor advocating that we all carry guns at least offensive?

Pastor WHITNEY: Some would. I know that in my congregation none would, because they understand that we have the biblical right of self-defense. Jesus said, `If you don’t have a sword, go buy one’ for the purpose of self-defense.

SEVERSON: Do you think ministers should carry guns?

Ms. MARCIA OWEN (Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham): I think that that would be very counter to the message of Christ.

SEVERSON: Marcia Owen is with the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, which is affiliated with about 60 local churches. She organizes vigils for the victims of gun violence in her North Carolina city.

This is a vigil for 14-year old Tavisa Cartnail, who was shot and killed in a drive-by.

Unidentified Man: She was a nice, nice young lady.

Unidentified Woman: Some of us did not know Tavisa. But we learned about her when she became a statistic.

SEVERSON: The mother, still mourning, did not attend the vigil, but her friend Sheryl Smith was there, and she understands the grief.

Ms. SHERYL SMITH: My son was murdered in November 2005 in a drive-by.

SEVERSON: Each year Durham averages about 30 murders, and Marcia tries to hold a vigil after each one.

Ms. OWEN: The reason that we do those is we truly believe that, before we do any advocacy or policy work, that we first must do the most important thing, which is to stop, to gather at the site of the homicide, and to witness to the sanctity of life and to mourn.

SEVERSON: The Durham neighborhoods, where many gun murders take place, are comprised mainly of African-Americans.

Ms. OWEN: If this were my child and my neighborhood, would this continue on? I don’t think so. I know it wouldn’t. Something would be done. But these communities are almost like invisible communities to us.

SEVERSON: Marcia’s coalition gets involved with the inner-city community by meeting with low-income kids, urging them to stay away from guns, and also working closely with former inmates, who are often the perpetrators and then the targets of gun violence in the inner cities. Peter Lamonte Bell has been working at and advancing in the city’s Water Department ever since he got out of prison two years ago. He was in on drug and gun convictions.

If I—say I wanted to get a gun here in Durham, how long would it take me to get it?

Mr. PETER LAMONTE BELL: A couple of hours. I’ve never been to a gun store in my life and bought a gun. It always come from the street. A lot of the guns that are on the street, they’re coming right from citizen’s homes, because you have citizens that have firearms.

SEVERSON: He says most inmates are not prepared to come out of prison. And without a lot of support, many end up back dealing drugs and using guns. So the coalition’s faith team helps people like Peter get jobs and housing and their lives back together. They meet regularly.

Mr. BELL: I guess I had the same problem that every citizen has now, and it’s paying bills and being broke. But it ain’t so bad. These are God-fearing, -loving people that care—that’s reaching out to try and help you. And so, it’s nothing that I won’t bring to my faith team. And if something really serious that is brought on me, I say, `Look, we need to have a meeting.’

SEVERSON: Marcia Owen says the North Carolina legislature has blocked every effort at gun control.

You are not looking to get rid of guns?

Ms. OWEN: No, not at all. I’m not—no. I’m not an abolitionist.

SEVERSON: But her objective would undoubtedly require some measures of gun control, which Pastor Whitney strongly opposes.

Pastor WHITNEY: Well, the answer to the problem really isn’t to say, `We’re going to disarm the law-abiding citizens.’ Because then you make them vulnerable to murder. The answer to the rate of violence in America is the full preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which changes the heart of men from sinners who disobey God’s law—“Thou shall not kill”—to disciples of Jesus Christ who obey God’s law.

SEVERSON: That’s what Jackie Rowe Adams and her group is all about—getting rid of illegal guns by giving the NYPD information about stores or storefronts they suspect are dealing in illegal guns.

You’ve helped close down some of these businesses around here that have been dealing in illegal guns, right?

Ms. ROWE ADAMS: Yes we have. Yes we have.

SEVERSON: But that must be a little dangerous for you?

Ms. ROWE ADAMS: It is dangerous. But the danger is when kids get their hands on these guns, they’re taking a life. So if I could help close down some of these illegal places, then my living will not be in vain.

SEVERSON: The church involvement she was hoping for is finally taking shape, and not only in Harlem. It’s not an effort to get rid of guns but to keep them out of the wrong hands. But they face an uphill battle convincing churchgoers that guns issues should been given a higher priority from the pulpit.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Harlem.

By David Gordon

“The Ruses for War: American Interventionism Since World War II” (Prometheus, 2007) by John B. Quigley, 433 pgs.

John Quigley’s book has a valuable main thesis and, I suggest, an even more valuable claim that underlies this thesis. The purpose of his book, Quigley tells us, is to explore “U.S. military actions abroad over the past half-century. We look in each instance at what the president and his aides said, and what reasons they gave. Then we examine the situation in light of what is known today to determine whether the administration was truthful” (pp. 14-15).

Quigley, an authority on international law, examines around thirty cases, beginning with the Korean War and ending with Iraq, where the United States has used force. In each instance, he shows, the administration’s account has been blatantly false. Often, e.g., it is claimed that we must intervene to protect American citizens at risk in a foreign crisis; but it turns out that almost all of these Americans have left the scene before our expeditionary forces arrive.

In our farcical invasion of Grenada in 1983, the administration maintained that it needed to protect American medical students from warring factions of the leftist party in power. The students had not been harmed; the administration “could not a present a logical explanation why the Grenadan government might take hostages”; and when the “rescue” force arrived, it ignored the students.

But our author seems here open to an objection. Perhaps the public cannot grasp power politics. Only experienced statesmen, wise in the intricacies of diplomacy, can guide our country. If necessary the emotionally driven public must be deceived for its own good. Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy Administration, in 1962 said “that in crisis situations, he believed in ‘the inherent right of the Government to lie.’ He spoke of lying euphemistically as ‘generation’ of news, and said that ‘news management’ was ‘part of the arsenal of weaponry’ of government” (p. 380).

Here precisely the underlying claim of Quigley’s book enters the scene. He shows, for case after case, that the president and his cohorts did not act to protect America from danger. Quite the contrary, the administration manufactured crises on flimsy pretexts. Far from being Platonic Guardians who had caught sight of the Form of the Good, the ruling powers were bumblers with itchy trigger figures.

A new objection threatens to block our way. “No doubt,” it may be said, “if one accepts Quigley’s account of the various crises, his underlying claim follows: the US government has continually engaged in needless foreign interventions. But we should not accept what Quigley says. He is a leftist, always inclined to put the US in the wrong.”

The objection fails. Quigley’s understanding of the free market is less than ideal; and a few times, he does seem to me to view Communist foreign policy with undue sympathy. He contends, e.g., that Khrushchev’s sending missiles to Cuba was a defensive move to forestall an American invasion. This may well be true, but Quigley does not say, as he should have, that the Russian action was a dangerously provocative move. Also, his statement that “Castro eventually did attach his star to the Kremlin, but it was never clear whether this resulted from Castro’s rejecting us or our rejecting him” (p. 97) ignores evidence that Castro had been a convinced communist since the late 1940s.

There are, though, very few questionable statements in the vast array of material our author has amassed. And, much more important, Quigley’s thesis does not depend on acceptance of his views of America’s opponents, correct though he usually is. As he shows incontrovertibly, American policy makers acted before it became clear what our supposed enemy intended to do. Even, then, if one thinks that the United States did confront real threats, the bulk of Quigley’s case remains intact.

A few examples will show the power of Quigley’s analysis. The Korean War began shortly after June 25, 1950, when “the south reported an attack by the north and said fighting continued all across Korea along the [38th] parallel. The north claimed just the opposite. Pyongyang Radio announced that the the south ‘started a surprise invasion of the north along the whole front of the 38th parallel line at dawn on the 25th’” (p. 31).

The United States did not wait until the situation became clear: instead, the Truman administration demanded from the UN Security Council authorization to repel the attack. In doing so, it ignored the fact that border skirmishes between the two Korean regimes had been going on months prior to June 1950. Further, Syngman Rhee, the unpopular South Korean leader, had every reason to invade. His government was unpopular, and only the crisis of war could stave off its replacement. (Quigley relies for his account of the war on Bruce Cumings, the leading American authority on the war, along with his own primary source research. Cumings in many respects confirmed the pioneering revisionist work of I.F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War (New York, 1952), a book much esteemed by Murray Rothbard. Stone, though at the time an undoubted Communist sympathizer, was nevertheless an excellent researcher.)

Once more, Quigley’s case does not depend on his account of Rhee’s motives. Even if one assumes that North Korea was intent on conquest, it remains the case that the United States had no reliable evidence on which to base its charge of North Korean aggression. The Truman Administration’s claims were, to use a phrase of Churchill’s, “terminological inexactitudes,” and its rush to judgment delayed for over two years a negotiated settlement of the dispute between the two Koreas. In like fashion, China entered the war only after deliberate attacks on hydroelectric plants in Korea that supplied Manchuria with power; and its forays into Korea were at first very tentative. The United States claimed without adequate basis that China intended to conquer Korea in order to bring it within the Communist world empire. In point of fact, the American Supreme Commander, Douglas MacArthur, aimed to induce a Chinese attack, since he had hopes of overturning the Communist Chinese government.

As if this were not enough, the United States made another deceptive claim. It contended that South Korea was the victim of international aggression. But even if the North had launched a full-scale invasion of the South at the instigation of the Chinese or Russians, the best case for the US position, the American claim would still have been false. North and South Korea were not at the time separate countries; the two regimes were merely in control of administrative zones, supposedly temporary. The conflict was then a civil war; but had the US thus characterized it, it would have been unable to get UN backing to repel a foreign invasion. Much better for its purposes, then, to lie. When US forces, prior to Chinese entry, routed the North Korean army, they refused to stop at the 38th parallel, on the grounds that this was not an international boundary. Korea was either one country or two, depending on what best served the Truman administration’s purposes.

The pattern of mendacity has remained constant in the fifty years since Korea. Everyone knows the manner in which Bush lied us into the Iraq war, but the invasion of Afghanistan has gotten a much better press. Was it not necessary to overthrow the Taliban government, which provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden? Quigley shows that this view rests on dubious assumptions.

First, when the United States demanded of Afghanistan the surrender of bin Laden, it ignored customary procedures of international law. “The normal international procedure for the surrender of a suspect is extradition. The government that seeks surrender provides information to show probable cause that the person sought committed a crime. A court in the country from which extradition is requested hears the evidence in open court and decides whether there is sufficient evidence that the accused person committed the crime in question. In requesting evidence, the Taliban was thus adhering to accepted international standards” (pp. 360-61).

Instead, the United States demanded that the Taliban surrender bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders without the customary procedures; when the Taliban did not comply invasion followed. The Taliban professed willingness to negotiate over the conditions for surrender of the suspects, but the US would not discuss its ultimatum. If the Taliban was not sincere, this could soon have been determined, but the US would not wait.

As Quigley aptly notes, military force is supposed to be the last resort in a crisis, not the first. One may add to Quigley’s case that, accepting the American ultimatum at face value, force could rightly be used only to seize bin Laden and his cohorts. The US had no warrant for the Bush administration’s catchphrase, “regime change.”

As mentioned above, the administration’s false claims about Iraq are common knowledge. Iraq had no WMD to threaten the United States at the time that Bush ordered an invasion; quite the contrary, Iraq had been crippled by repeated bombing raids and a blockade.

But even if Saddam Hussein posed no immediate threat, did he not show his malign intentions by attempting to have the first President Bush assassinated during a visit to Kuwait in 1993? In one of the book’s most interesting chapters, Quigley shows that this assertion rests on dubious evidence. Secretary of State Albright told the UN Security Council that bombs found on the suspects had certain components available only in Iraq. Seymour Hersh showed the photographs of the bombs on which Albright relied in her presentation to seven independent explosives experts. They denied her claim; the circuitry on the devices was readily available and not of exclusive Iraqi provenance. The FBI chemist, one of the world’s leading authorities, agreed with the independent experts, but his report was altered so that the Clinton administration could proceed with its plan to bomb Iraq. Quigley’s extensive survey of American policy is a most valuable resource for anyone interested in testing America’s foreign policy claims against the historical record.

Notes

See, e.g., Nathaniel Weyl, Red Star Over Cuba (New York, 1961).

Quigley does not discuss claims that the Bush administration either had guilty knowledge of, or itself instigated, the 9/11 attacks. See, e.g., David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, and my review in The Mises Review, Summer 2004. I find these claims hard to assess, as they in large part rest on technical details of which I lack knowledge.

The book maintains a high standard of accuracy, but I noted one mistake. Hiram Johnson was a senator from California, not Texas (p. 23).

The following, which first appeared in the “California Farmer” publication February 1, 1975, is particularly relevant today since President Bush never tires of telling us, erroneously of course, that all people everywhere have always desired “freedom” all the time. And, sad to say, Mr. Bush believes it is the job of our nation to spread “freedom” all over the world – and “democracy” — by, if necessary, bombs and bullets – J.L.)

By Rev. R.J. Rushdoony

E. R. Dodds, in his study of “The Greeks and the Irrational,” titles a chapter “The Fear of Freedom.” The whole of the ancient world was marked by this fear of freedom. Plato and Aristotle planned states in which freedom was to be denied to most men, and pagan rulers uniformly acted on this principle. Freedom was believed to be a dangerous thing, and only a handful of rulers could be trusted with it.

Through the centuries, men have noticed how fearful men are of freedom and how most men are unable to cope with it. T. H. Huxley said, “A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.”

Certainly, in our day most men pay lip service to freedom but in reality vote against it with their lives and their ballots. Our legislators assume that farmers and farm workers cannot be trusted with freedom, and capital and labor both assume that the less freedom for others, the better all will be.

Men do not like freedom because they themselves are not free by nature. The basic slavery, slavery to sin, is the nature of their being, and they show their slavery in every area of life.

Jesus declared, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant [or slave] of sin … If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:34, 36). The root of slavery is in the nature of man.

We are today surrounded by a slave people because they are by nature unregenerate. They are most at home in slavery, and most comfortable with it. They will vote for slavery because they are slaves. They dislike and fear freedom because they are at enmity with God. Give them freedom and they will vote it out of existence and work in every way to destroy it.

Men fear freedom, because it means life and responsibility under God. The appeal of slavery is that it offers a life free of responsibilities, and this is always the appeal of slavery. Some nations have in the past had as many as four-fifths living in actual slavery and content with it, because it took responsibility off their shoulders.

The flight from freedom is always first of all the flight from God, Who created man to be responsible and to exercise dominion over the earth under Him. The choice is always God or slavery.

August 22, 2007

Support Our Troops They want us out of Iraq

by Justin Raimondo

If the op-ed page of the New York Times has often served as the first battleground in America's wars, where the arguments and counter-arguments for intervention are debated, then the past week or so has certainly brought this institutional tradition to the fore: last week, we had Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack averring that it's too early to sing a dirge over the "surge," which has been cited by the War Party as proof positive that "victory" is at hand – or, at any rate, is at least possible. These two Brookings Institution scholars, who spent a total of eight days in Iraq recently, have come back to tell us the "surge" is working, "morale is high," and Gen. Petraeus will save us. Their article has been touted by the administration and its amen corner in the media as the answer to the rising tide of public discontent over the war. Aside from the content of their arguments – anecdotes, really – we are told that these two are "harsh critics of the war," when the reality is that both supported it. Pollack wrote an entire book, The Threatening Storm, that was instrumental in mobilizing Democratic Party leaders to lend their support to the invasion. Indeed, in the article, the authors describe themselves as "two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq" (emphasis added). On the other side of the barricades, we have an article signed by seven soldiers in Iraq, who describe the political debate in Washington – where O'Hanlon and Pollack can get away with being called "war critics" – as "surreal." They write: "To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict." In other words, the much-touted "success" of the "surge" is a fraud. These guys are on the ground in Iraq, with the famed 82nd Airborne, and they're telling us – and Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry, and Messrs. O'Hanlon and Pollack – that it isn't working. No one questions American military superiority over the insurgents, but, they say, this has not brought about success, by any measure. Instead, we find ourselves confronted with a proliferating array of "actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, al-Qaeda terrorists, Shi'ite militiamen, criminals, and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense." The details of this "Janus-faced role" are bloodcurdling. The seven describe an incident in which the Iraqi army and police helped ambush U.S. units, causing one American death and two critical injuries: "Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb." Yet how can this be? Aren't we in Iraq precisely to support the very army and police units these soldiers say are killing Americans? It makes no sense, unless one takes into consideration what Seymour Hersh calls "the redirection" of U.S. strategy in the region, which is geared to the next target of the neocons' "regime change" agenda: Iran. The redirection requires a sudden and radical shift in our alliances, sundering our ties with the Shi'ites and taking up the cause of the defeated Sunnis – with Saudi Arabia, our primary regional satrap, standing behind them. Those ambushed soldiers were caught in the shifting currents of the American about-face, and they will not be the only ones to suffer severe whiplash. The seven authors of "The War as We Saw It" recognize this new turn yet seem bewildered by it: "Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shi'ite militias and the Shi'ite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against al-Qaeda. "However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave." What they don't see is that this is part of a larger anti-Shi'ite, anti-Iranian strategic turn – that Washington is already fighting the next war, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq merges seamlessly into an armed conflict with Iran. Their lack of comprehension as far as this issue is concerned is shared by Sen. Carl Levin, who has lately taken up the Sunni cause and is now demanding that the Maliki government step down. Has there ever been a more blatant expression of America's imperialistic arrogance? Usually, as in the case of Vietnam – e.g., the toppling of President Ngo Dinh Diem – this sort of thing is done sub rosa. However, in a fit of irrational exuberance – perhaps unwarranted – the latest bearers of the White Man's Burden are openly talking about exercising their imperial prerogatives. Added to this vulgar display is the spectacle of Iyad Allawi – formerly the CIA's favorite candidate for prime minister – trying to make a comeback, not in Iraq but in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, where he calls for "change at the top of the Iraqi government." It isn't clear if he's asking to be installed in office by force of U.S. arms, but if he isn't, he's coming awfully close. What is very interesting about all this is the new confluence of Democratic rhetoric and administration policy when it comes to measuring "success" in Iraq: Sen. Levin is essentially demanding that the Bush people implement the "redirection" faster, and harder. As one blogger reported: "Barbour, Griffith & Rogers LLC, the registered lobbyists working on behalf of Ayad Allawi, sent out Levin's statements to their mailing list, from the account of DrAyadAllawi@allawi-for-iraq.com "I wonder if the lobbyists canvassed Levin before he made his remarks, thereby influencing his views. "Don't reporters find this odd: Ayad Allawi has lobbyists running around D.C. peddling him as Maliki's replacement, probably influencing Democratic thinking on Iraq, and consequently shaping Democratic strategies for the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. … Doesn't this count as news?" Well, yes, it does, but, aside from merely reporting this news, there is the question of what it means. Rather than the assessment advanced by the aforementioned blogger – the "surge" is working, and Levin is simply grasping at another partisan straw – I would suggest another explanation entirely. A Levin-Allawi-Sunni alliance amounts to the Democratic leadership helping to write the next chapter in the history of America's conquest of the Middle East – indeed, if, as is widely expected, the Democrats take the White House in '08, they'll be the primary authors of that bloodstained and thoroughly wretched saga. While this odd alliance presents the Sunni "moderate" case in terms of stabilizing Iraq to the point where our presence is no longer required – Allawi calls for aiming at a U.S. withdrawal two years from now – the revival of the Democrats' call for "benchmarks" is just a cover story for a darker, deadlier narrative. The tempo of events is increasing as we approach the much-touted September report on "progress" in Iraq, in which Gen. Petraeus is expected to note the "gains" we have supposedly made by allying with our former Sunni enemies, while targeting the Iranians as the real obstacles to lasting success. There are increasing reports of border incidents, and we are very close, I believe, to a major confrontation between U.S. and Iranian forces. By taking up the Allawi lobby, the Democrats are helping to set the stage for a disaster that will dwarf our present predicament in Iraq by several degrees of magnitude – war with Iran. NOTES IN THE MARGIN I'll be a speaker at the upcoming 18th annual meeting of the John Randolph Club, "Speaking Truth To Power," Sept. 21-22, 2007. I'll be discussing the bipartisan "consensus" on the alleged necessity of interventionism. Go here for details.

July 27, 2007

Militarism – America's State Religion One soldier's literary blasphemy

by Justin Raimondo

This has got the War Party in an uproar: Michelle Malkin's head is spinning practically off its axis, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, only faster, the boys over at Powerline are hotly demanding an "explanation," and, to top it off, Jonah Goldberg, of all people, is waxing skeptical over "Shock Troops," a piece in The New Republic by the pseudonymous "Scott Thomas." So what's the big deal? Apparently – not much. "Thomas" – now revealed to be Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a private stationed in Iraq with the First Infantry Division – details two incidents that have the neocon blogosphere in a major tizzy, but which, examined by calmer heads, don't appear to be that big of a deal. So what's up with that? Okay, let's look at the first such incident: our soldier-author is sitting in the mess hall, and in comes a woman whose face is "half melted" – the victim of an IED, Thomas says. He's seen her around, but no one has ever talked to her that he has witnessed. He continues eating, but one of his buddies can't deal with it: suddenly, the buddy jams his spoon in his mashed potatoes and exclaims: "'Man, I can't eat like this …' "'Like what?' I said. ‘Chow hall food getting to you?'" "'No – with that fucking freak behind us!' he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth." Beauchamp then goes into a riff about how he thinks "she's fucking hot," and how much it turns him on to see "melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses …" His friend responds: "You're crazy, man!" Yes, that's it, of course. He's crazy. So is everyone in Iraq, and on every battlefield since the beginning of time. War is madness, not the glorious adventure the War Party makes it out to be: it is always bad news, which is why our neocons are always complaining about the lack of "good news" about the Iraq war in the "biased" American media. That's because there just isn't any, although our chickenhawks and assorted laptop bombardiers are blissfully unaware of that: in their ignorance, they glorify war, and warriors, which is why Beauchamp's writings make them so angry. The mythology of militarism cannot survive such realism – and Beauchamp's naturalistic depiction is deadly to it in a way that the revelations about Abu Ghraib and other American atrocities committed in Iraq are not. The Malkins and the Hewitts were scrambling to discredit Beauchamp and his Youtube-ish account of casual cruelty because it reveals our troops in the field as human, and painfully ordinary, rather than the hyped-up demi-gods of neocon myth. According to the neocon party line, if you don't support the war, the "surge," and Our Glorious Leader, then you don't support the troops – and yet, when one of these heroes writes a true account of what it's like out in the field, the devotees of their cult on the home front are suddenly contemptuous of "the troops" – or, at least, this particular soldier, who is now being demonized as little short of a traitor – if not a Stephen Glass-in-fatigues – by all right-thinking neocon clones. It's pathetic, really, to see how quickly these strutting little militarists turn on the military, when one of them fails to live up to the mythic image so carefully nurtured by the War Party. Robert D. Kaplan, the Kagan clan, and Rummy's hagiographer Midge Decter – to mention a few sources of the new militaristic mysticism – all depict American soldiers as an austere priesthood of exemplars, the Knights Templar of Bush's "global democratic revolution." Would these icons mock a disfigured comrade, and a female at that? Of course not. Any time reality intrudes on the war-fantasies of our world-conquering neocons, they rise up like the Furies, intent on revenge against the blasphemers. Yet their anger at Beauchamps was of a special quality, the hysteria rising in their voices as he revealed his true identity and his editors stood by his story. What accounts for the embittered disbelief of Beauchamp's critics is that he commits the ultimate sacrilege: he shows that U.S. troops in Iraq are just plain ordinary Americans, circa 2007: vulgar, occasionally cruel, and incredibly childish. That fool who paraded around for an entire day wearing a human skull as a hat has seen too many Mad Max movies, has played too many video games, and has grown up in the warm fetid bath of American pop culture with its sex-saturated imagery of violence and death. The Americans have brought their culture with them to Iraq. Is it really all that unbelievable that male soldiers in a mess hall would crack crude jokes insulting to women and the disabled? C'mon, you neocons – are you really that divorced from reality? The answer to the above question is undoubtedly yes. Because what we are dealing with, in the War Party, are the acolytes of a new religion, the semi-official state religion of the Cheney administration, and that is the worship of Ares. The ancient Greeks disdained the war god, whom they regarded as a cowardly opportunist rather than a heroic warrior, naturally inclined to cruelty and nothing honorable about him. On the other hand, the Romans gave Mars a special place of honor at the Olympian banquet of the gods, in part because they considered themselves his descendants. The great problem of the neocon myth-makers is that their brand of militarism is centered around the solemn worship of Mars, but mischievous Ares keeps popping up unexpectedly at these cultic rituals, making profane remarks and generally spoiling the air of mystic reverence. Militarism really is a religion with these people, and they reacted to the debunking of their gods with all the vehemence and shocked outrage that the Islamists directed at Salman Rushdie – immediately declaring a holy war against the blasphemer and his editors. With one voice, the right-blogosphere rose up, declaring the whole thing to be a hoax before having evidence of any such thing. You see, they don't need evidence: after all, we're talking about an ideology that has degenerated into a faith. They know it isn't true: they know the "surge" is working; they know the "real" story of how we're winning in Iraq is being blocked by the MSM, which is reporting only the bad news. In the overwhelming face of evidence to the contrary, all they have to do is slip into their alternate universe and deny everything. That's the psychological mechanism that produces both suicide-bombers and our suicidal foreign policy: the ability to block out all but a carefully pre-selected slice of reality, one that rationalizes and even glamorizes the gritty, bloody, messy reality of war. The cult of Ares has risen to become the semi-official state religion of this most war-like of all administrations, and its acolytes are a danger to the Republic and to the soldiers they profess to admire. They pose a threat to our republican form of government because an army can have only one commander, and a thoroughly militarized state can remain a democracy even as it morphs into a tyranny. The War Party, far from supporting our troops, is the biggest danger to the American military's effectiveness and cohesiveness as a fighting force, which is why they have not the slightest compunctions as they grind it into the ground. Tasked with the impossible job of policing the world, the American GI is being set up for failure. When a futile, unwinnable, and savage war turns our soldiers into skull-wearing juvenile delinquents on a rampage, our neocon cultists turn on … a soldier who dares to speak truth to their pompous platitudes of soldierly virtue. "Support our troops," the neocons constantly exhort us – but not when they shatter our sacred illusions. NOTES IN THE MARGIN Get thee over to Taki's Top Drawer, where I'm writing about Bush's historical legacy, Litvinenko revisionism, the tortured rationalizations of a recovering warmonger, and why whoever lifted Anne Applebaum's wallet may have started a new cold war.

August 20, 2007

The Outer Limits The War Party's wackos are indicative of a trend

by Justin Raimondo

Every movement has its wackos, its "extremists," who take the original premise of an idea to its furthest, kookiest application. Usually they are harmless, due to their small numbers and the obvious nuttiness of their ideas. In times of crisis, however, when people are looking for simple answers – and, above all, safety – these ideological entrepreneurs of the fringe have the potential to make many more sales than usual. And then, watch out… I draw your attention to this phenomenon because we very rarely get a glimpse of the pure, undiluted craziness of the War Party. Observed through the veil of euphemism, doubletalk, and outright lies, their bombast always falls short of the full-tilt moonbattiness that we can see, quite clearly, lighting up their eyes. When the president's men talk about the "unitary presidency," when the editor of National Review "jokes" about nuking Mecca, when the more unhinged neocons darkly imply that critics of the war and the Dear Leader should be jailed, they always qualify it, mask it, and sweeten the bitter pill of what Lew Rockwell calls "red-state fascism." But sometimes they let the mask slip… One such very instructive instance was the publication of an article by the Family Security Foundation – a neocon propaganda outfit associated with the well-known Center for Security Policy – written by one Philip Atkinson, entitled "Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy," which bemoans the fact that Bush didn't take "the wisest course" in Iraq, which "would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead." This statement, alone, should be enough to make the gauge in our crazy-ometer go, uh, crazy, but Atkinson is just getting started. The problem, says this self-proclaimed "philosopher," is that Democracy (he insists on capitalizing the word) is a fatally flawed system, because it elevates the "popular" policy over the "wise" course, i.e., nuking Iraq. Ah, but there is a solution to Bush's conundrum… According to Atkinson, Bush can follow in the supposed footsteps of Julius Caesar "by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans." Atkinson seems to be laboring under the delusion that the Roman caesar committed genocide in Gaul, although where he gets this is beyond me, but that is neither here nor there. The punch line of what one might have suspected is an extended joke is this: "He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court." Oh, but why stop there? This is the mark of the true nutball, who cannot avoid the "logic" of his craziness and must follow it wherever it leads: "President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming 'ex-president' Bush or he can become 'President-for-Life' Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons." Notice the rationalization, coming in at the end: our "president-for-life" must seize total power because of a potentially overwhelming threat, one that requires the suspension of the normal rules and customs of a liberal society and imposes its own ruthless logic on our institutions. We find ourselves transformed, quite beyond our power to stop it, from a republic into an empire: the choice, in effect, has already been made for us. That is, unless we want to commit suicide, which is supposedly the only alternative to hailing Bush as the ancient Romans once hailed Caesar. As Atkinson explains: "The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself." What "modernity" means to Atkinson and at least some of his fellow neocons is that technological advances have given us permission to commit genocide. It apparently also means we must revert to the absolutism of the ancients. Now, a lot of crazy sh*t gets posted on the Internet every single day, and to take even half of it seriously would be a major time-waster, but Atkinson's brand of kookiness deserves to be noted on account of the organization that sponsored it, published it, and then quickly pulled the piece off its Web site when an uproar ensued. The group is the Family Security Foundation, which runs the Family Security Matters Web site, and whose head honcho, Carol Taber, is touted as a "security expert" by Fox News. Taber was trotted out during the last presidential election as the living embodiment of a new voter demographic, the "security moms," whose only thought is the safety and security of their children and whose fear of terrorism leads them to support every jot and tittle of Bush's war-crazed foreign policy – especially the war in Iraq. The group's Web site, which gave blogger/policy wonk Steve Clemons "the over-the-top creeps," also features such neocon standbys as Michelle "Intern All Muslims" Malkin, terrorism "expert" Steve Emerson, and Ben Shapiro, among many others. The Family Security Foundation's board of directors is a veritable who's who of third-and-fourth level neocon shills, with a few first-tier types, such as Frank Gaffney, standing out. Indeed, the whole Family Security Matters operation is described by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters as a "front group" for Gaffney's Center for Security Policy (CSP), the hardest of the hard-line neocon propaganda outfits. Media Matters notes that the two groups shared a phone line: calls to FSM were answered by CSP. (The number has since been changed.) Aside from longtime head honcho Gaffney, CSP members and supporters include Richard Perle, former CIA chief R. James "World War IV" Woolsey, current Deputy National Security Adviser Jack Dyer Crouch II, former undersecretary for defense policy Douglas J. Feith, and former secretary of the U.S. Air Force James G. Roche. CSP is funded to the tune of millions of dollars per year by the big neocon foundations and the "defense" industry. Gaffney's group is the veritable voice of the military-industrial complex. More than that, however, the link between the two groups is ideological, as well as a matter of cross-pollinated boards of directors and "advisers" (Gaffney and James T. DeGraffenreid serve as CSP officials and advisers to FSM). CSP pushes the same propaganda of fear that underlies Carol Taber's "security moms" pitch. In Philip Atkinson's ravings, we have the pure distillation of the politics of fear that have been given ample expression by this president and his media Praetorian Guard. The only difference is that Atkinson comes out of the closet, so to speak, and plainly says what the others strongly imply: that the only good Arab is a dead Arab, that President Bush ought to silence his opponents at gunpoint, and that any and all opposition to this administration's "wise" policies is not only "treason" – it's "suicide." We must ditch our old republic and adopt an authoritarian mode of government; we must invade, conquer, and relentlessly destroy the Arab world; Israel's interests in the Middle East and ours are identical. Where have we heard all this before? In fairness, Atkinson's article was pulled by the FSM staff, but one has to wonder why: was it because Atkinson was too honest and plainspoken in detailing the neocon program for America? Taber and her fellow "security moms" are seemingly complacent in their belief that Americans – especially women – will gladly surrender their liberty for a modicum of "security." If I were them, however, I wouldn't bet on it: the first hint that Clueless George is about to declare himself "president-for-life" would have the American people up in arms, with women – whom I doubt want their children to grow up under a dictatorship – taking the lead. The Family Security Matters crowd is at the outer limits of neocon kookery, but, I submit, they are indicative of an emerging trend: as the War Party suffers more losses, it tends to get a little crazy, and this outburst isn't an isolated one by any means. More and more, we'll be seeing the mask slip, little by little, until the true faces of the cretins who want to destroy our republic are revealed in all their ugliness.

by Bryan Edds
by Bryan Edds

        
DIGG THIS

From my experience, people who attack libertarians such as Ron Paul are often not serious about ideas. I have noticed the individuals who deride Dr. Paul do so mostly with shallow and dishonest attacks.

Take the various socialists and welfare-statists who attack Ron Paul. I understand they support nationalizing healthcare while generally being against the occupation of Iraq. Because they oppose the occupation, they should find a powerful ally in someone as principally opposed to it as Ron Paul. Take also the neoconservatives in the mass (minded) media such as Faux News who attack and omit Dr. Paul. I understand they support the occupation of the Middle East but also believe government should be strictly limited in accordance with traditional conservative ideas (right? right???). In Ron Paul, they have a great opportunity to highlight these at least rhetorical parallels while simultaneously expressing reasonable disagreements. Because of these considerations, I believe it reasonable to expect a certain amount of give and take among the three camps, if only for practical reasons.

What I have experienced instead has been a surreal and dishonest two-front attack against Ron Paul. No argument seems to be too trivial or irrelevant for the anti-Paulians to make. They seem to be bringing up every possible issue (real or imagined) against Ron Paul in the hopes something – anything – will stick.

Consider:

• While the President gets dictatorial power to spy on and indefinitely kidnap innocent Americans, socialists and neocons speculate wildly about Ron Paul supporters "spamming" internet polls.
• While thousands of men, women, and children violently die in Iraq and Afghanistan, socialists and neocons misrepresent Ron Paul's refusal to fund stem cell research.
• While the Bush administration plots to drop nuclear weapons on Iran, socialists and neocons spin every single Ron Paul victory to be meaningless or nonexistent.
• While people suffer without healthcare because government intervention makes it unaffordable to the poor, socialists and neocons distort a decade-old mishap Ron Paul had with one of his previous ghostwriters.

Where they manage to attack Dr. Paul’s ideas directly, they do so with increasingly ineffective arguments. Consider further:

• While the Constitution is trashed and mocked by all three branches, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul's message of rule of law is anachronistic.
• While government at all levels rob the people blind, socialists and neocons sneer at Ron Paul’s suggestion to get rid of the Federal income tax.
• While the American economy further implodes due to the boom and bust cycle created by the Federal Reserve, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul's anti-Fed proposals are "irrelevant."
• While the prices of essential goods dramatically increase via inflation, socialists and neocons talk about how Ron Paul's hard-money ideas are unrealistic.
• While Ron Paul educates Americans on economics, socialists and neocons spread discredited Keynesian and Marxist myths which undermine liberty and prosperity.
• While Ron Paul plans to help reintegrate America with the world through peaceful trade and foreign policy, socialists and neocons smear him as "isolationist."
• While Ron Paul gains more supporters every day, socialists and neocons criticize his lack of name recognition in land-line phone polling – yet at the same time groan about how fanatical and pervasive his supporters are...

Something isn't right. There is honest disagreement, and then there is demagoguery. There is mutual respect, and then there is mud-slinging. I cannot name one person who Dr. Paul has disparaged as badly as most of his critics see fit to disparage him. This says a lot about all said parties involved.

What is it then about Ron Paul that inspires such fevered attacks? I will say what I believe. I believe the battle for freedom takes place not only in the upcoming election, but also in the arena of ideas. In this arena, I believe Ron Paul’s message is more powerful than any political shenanigans that can be put against him. I believe also the embittered detractors have good reason to be up in arms. With every Ron Paul victory, they have found their intellectual weaponry to be unexpectedly brittle and ineffective against the message of freedom.

August 22, 2007

Bryan Edds [send him mail], a 26-year-old software consultant and 3-D game developer, lives in Ohio.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

 had to wipe Earl Grey tea spray from my computer screen as I laughed and watched the very entertaining Ron Paul is the Matrix YouTube on the Lew Rockwell Breaking News blog. The Matrix–Ron Paul connection is a perfect fit. In The Matrix (in case you live in a duct tape and plastic enrobed house without outside communication), Neo (Keanu Reeves) is given a choice by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to take the blue pill, wake up in your bed "and believe whatever you want to believe," or, take the red pill and "stay in Wonderland and [see] how deep the rabbit hole goes." The Matrix, as Morpheus explains to Neo, is a computer generated program or "dreamworld" created by artificial intelligence (machines) to keep humanity under control and to use humans as its primary power source. As the story goes, Neo swallows the red pill, battles the nefarious Matrix Agents, and fulfills his destiny as "the one," which was to destroy the Matrix and save humanity. In our present reality, Ron Paul is our Neo; he is "the one" that may be our last and best hope to revive the essence and spirit of our (former) Constitutional Republic.

Like a splinter in my mind, to borrow another Morpheus expression, the Ron Paul YouTube video made me recall another interesting aspect of both my past and The Matrix. There is a song on The Matrix soundtrack made (more mainstream) popular by the movie called Wake Up performed by Rage Against the Machine (RATM). The album of that same name (the cover of which depicts a Vietnamese Buddhist monk burning himself to death in 1963 to protest the murder of fellow Buddhists) was released to critical acclaim in 1992. If you have heard it, you understand; if you have not, you may want to check it out. Be warned: it’s a raw, politically-charged, profanity laced, anti-government, anti-establishment tirade that blasts a listener with cold, hard reality. It’s a perfect compliment to The Matrix, and to me, a perfect fit with the essence and spirit of the Ron Paul movement. As the Wake Up lyrics go, we are all "… till knee-deep in the system’s sh**, … I’ll give you a dose but it’ll never come close to the rage built up inside of me, fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy… Whadda I got to do to wake you up, to shake you up, to break the structure up, ’cause blood still flows in the gutter …" Indeed it does and we are seemingly powerless to stop it, unless, of course, Ron Paul really is "the one."

I attended the July 1993 Lollapalooza RATM show in Philadelphia when the band took the stage naked but for "PMRC" taped on the band members’ chests and black tape covering their mouths. They did not play that day, but they did stand there naked for 15 minutes to make their point. I was angered, as where many, but at the time, I did not know the whole story. (RATM later gave a free concert to make up for the mute-naked performance). PMRC, the "Parents Music Resource Center" was a censorship committee comprised of the "Washington Wives," Tipper Gore (Mrs. global warming Chicken Little), Susan Baker (wife of then Treasury Secretary James), Sally Nevius (wife of Washington City Council Chair John Nevius), Pam Howar (wife of Washington realtor Raymond Howar). The sickening Washington Wives reference is of course to their husbands’ tentacles in the Federal Government. When I later learned the full story, I was no longer angry. Fast forward from 1993 to 2000: I was at a friends house and I recognized the song "Wake Up" while watching The Matrix for the fist time. I was angry (again) because I believed that RATM had sold out for some Hollywood bucks, but as I watched the movie I realized the song was a perfect complement to the movie’s plot and underlying red pill–blue pill theme. And now in 2007, The Matrix red pill–blue pill theme and RATM’s Wake Up are perfect complements to the strengthening Ron Paul movement.

RATM broke up in 2000, but in an interesting confluence of events (in my red-pill world, anyway) the band has reunited and performed several shows this year with more to come. Here’s where it becomes really interesting for those that have ingested the red pill: During a show in Indio, California on April 29 the RATM lead singer Zack De la Rocha gave a speech during Wake Up referring to statements made by Noam Chomsky on the Nuremburg Standards and said:

[…] If the same laws were applied to U.S. presidents as were applied to the Nazis after World War II […] every single one of them, every last rich white one of them from Truman on, would have been hung to death and shot – and this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. […] this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction in order to survive. […] Wake up. [As reported by Corey Moss, MTV News].

Later, our blue pill friends Hannity & Colmes (or perhaps Agents) at Faux (alleged) News "discussed" De la Rocha’s statement – while the typically annoying on-screen headline blared – "[RATM] says Bush admin[istration] should be shot." The always charming Ann Coulter (an Agent guest that day) said: "There’re losers, their fans are losers…" I have no cogent defense to Ann’s deep intellectual analysis, but I’d rather be a red pill loser than a blue pill A-hole any day. RATM was not done. During a subsequent concert in New York on July 28 RATM ended their set with Wake Up and De la Rocha fired back at the Faux (alleged) News blather:

A couple of months ago, those fascist mother****ers at the Fox News [sic] Network attempted to pin this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the president should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was that he should be brought to trial as war criminal and hung and shot. THAT'S what we said. […] And we don't back away from the position because the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq. […] Wake up.

De la Rocha’s delivery and the rawness and radical nature of his message may differ from Ron Paul’s reasoned delivery, but the essence of their message is very similar. Every day, more and more Americans happily swallow the red pill and open their eyes to reality. In The Matrix, there is a scene where Neo asks Morpheus why his eyes hurt. Morpheus explains that it’s because Neo has never really used them. The chicken hawks, hacks, liars, deceivers, and statist filth like Bush, Cheney, Romney, Giuliani, the Clintons, and many others have no clue how to deal with Ron Paul because he delivers truth. Just as they need to mischaracterize and misrepresent De la Rocha’s statements (and their lackey Agents like Faux (alleged) news) they need to attack Ron Paul and attempt to label him a loon. Based on the electric response Ron Paul receives everywhere he goes, Americans are taking the red pill in droves because they fully understand our present reality and that it is leading us all to economic and societal ruin. Unless, of course, you are one of the politically-connected elites that ride our backs like we’re donkeys. The illusion that is the Matrix is beginning to crumble before our eyes and the statists are very afraid. If you have not yet done so, I urge you to swallow the red pill and wake up. It may hurt for a short time, but living in a life of truth, justice, decency, and genuine freedom is far better than living in an authoritarian world of deceit, delusion, illusion, and servitude.

August 22, 2007

John J. Smalanskas [send him mail] is a construction attorney who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Carrie and their sons Devlin and Connor.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

Washington Post August 19, 2007
John Solomon, Alec MacGillis and Sarah Cohen

Thirteen months before President Bush was reelected, chief strategist Karl Rove summoned political appointees from around the government to the Old Executive Office Building. The subject of the Oct. 1, 2003, meeting was "asset deployment," and the message was clear:

The staging of official announcements, high-visibility trips and declarations of federal grants had to be carefully coordinated with the White House political affairs office to ensure the maximum promotion of Bush's reelection agenda and the Republicans in Congress who supported him, according to documents and some of those involved in the effort.

"The White House determines which members need visits," said an internal e-mail about the previously undisclosed Rove "deployment" team, "and where we need to be strategically placing our assets."

Many administrations have sought to maximize their control of the machinery of government for political gain, dispatching Cabinet secretaries bearing government largess to battleground states in the days before elections. The Clinton White House routinely rewarded big donors with stays in the Lincoln Bedroom and private coffees with senior federal officials, and held some political briefings for top Cabinet officials during the 1996 election.

But Rove, who announced last week that he is resigning from the White House at the end of August, pursued the goal far more systematically than his predecessors, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance.

Under Rove's direction, this highly coordinated effort to leverage the government for political marketing started as soon as Bush took office in 2001 and continued through last year's congressional elections, when it played out in its most quintessential form in the coastal Connecticut district of Rep. Christopher Shays, an endangered Republican incumbent. Seven times, senior administration officials visited Shays's district in the six months before the election -- once for an announcement as minor as a single $23 government weather alert radio presented to an elementary school. On Election Day, Shays was the only Republican House member in New England to survive the Democratic victory.

"He didn't do these things half-baked. It was total commitment," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who in 2002