zenpundit.com

INSTAPUNDIT reports that the two British Islamofascists who committed the suicide bombings in Israel were former ” human shields ” and peace activists.

Not that there is much difference ;o)

LEGITIMACY, DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY:

International law does not take into account such niceties as free elections in determining which regimes are regarded as ” Legitimate ” in terms of having the right to exercise sovereignty over a terrotory. In a legal sense then, Switzerland’s government is no more ” Legitimate” than that of Oman, an absolute monarchy or Burma’s which is ruled by a repressive military-socialist dictatorship.

Nevertheless, various dictatorial regimes like Iraq under Saddam feel compelled to go through the charade of staged elections where the dictator gets 99.9 % of the vote or sometimes more than 100 % in order to demonstrate the regme’s bona fides to the international community. Why ? No one believes these elections are anything less than a complete farce and they more often invite ridicule and contempt from foreign observers.

The answer lies in the creeping acceptance of the Lockean social contract and Jeffersonian principle of ” just consent of the governed ” as the only true source of ” Legitimate ” governmental authority. All but the hardest-core leftists and Bush-haters acknowledged that the U.S. establishing democracy in Iraq was preferable to Saddam’s rule. As a principle of international law, democratic rule has yet to be enshrined as a bestower of legitimacy but psychologically democracy has made such inroads among the Western world’s population this outcome is all but inevitable.

Let tyrants fear.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE DEPARTMENT:

In a rare gesture of graciousness seldom seen among Democratic leaders in recent years – or in Washington in general for that matter – Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Dasche had this to say:

“Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Bush deserved “great credit” for his leadership during the war and praised the work of the military. Days before the war began, Daschle had blamed Bush’s failed diplomacy for making the fighting necessary and was criticized for his remarks.

“In 21 days, we eliminated somebody who for 20 years has repressed and tortured his own people and posed a serious security risk,” Daschle said.”

NEO-COMMUNISTS PART II by David Horowitz

RITING ON THE WALL:

Had the following cogent comment about Iraqi Shiites in response to the Tom Friedman column:

Friedman wrote: “This is the most important power struggle in the Middle East today. For now, the Iraqi Shiite clergy in Najaf are weak. They don’t have many senior clerics. I kept it that way. But you can’t just install your own Iraqi Shiite leaders. They will have to emerge on their own. You need to create the conditions in Najaf whereby students can come back and the natural Iraqi-Arab Shiite traditions can flower again to counter the Iranians.”

RITING responded:

easier said than done, mind you, but he’s right. the seminaries need to be up and running even faster than the government. this will serve a dual purpose: first, laying the groundwork for a new generation of shi’a clerics not trained in qom that follow afghani more closely than, say, khomeini and, second, it will distract those pesky clerics who apparently do want to run things right now. they’ll have to play academic politics. and god knows that takes enough time and energy that you can’t possibly run a country simultaneous to it.