[PEN-L:30277] RE: The imperial era begins

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30272] The imperial era begins

>We have instructed the Saudis and Pakistanis to stop
funding their religious schools -- the madrasas.<

does this mean that the Moonie-sponsored Washington TIMES is against government financing of religious schools (e.g., via vouchers)?

BTW, the shift toward religious education is partly (or even largely) due to the deliberate undermining of the public school system.

["Moonie" = follower of the South Korea-based Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who sees himself as the Messiah and works with the CIA and KCIA.]

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sabri Oncu [mailto:soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 7:56 PM
> To: PEN-L; ALIST
> Subject: [PEN-L:30272] The imperial era begins
>
>
> Washington Times, September 11, 2002
>
> The imperial era begins
>
> Tony Blankley
>
> In the past year, we have all asked the question: Has America
> changed as a result of the attacks of last September 11th? Most
> of the answers have focused on how we feel as Americans. Do we
> think about the danger? Do we relate to our families more
> intensely? Have we thought of moving or switching jobs?
>
> While most Americans have answered yes to at least one of these
> sorts of personal questions, such sentiments are probably
> fleeting. In fact, man is the most adaptable of all God's
> creatures. No matter how radically our environment changes, most
> of us quickly establish not only a physical method of dealing
> with the change, but a new mental sense of normality.
>
> My parents were Londoners during World War II. While the shock of
> German bombs was initially frightening and disorienting, within
> days they were casually diving for cover, stepping neatly over
> the rubble without snagging their clothes, and finding their way
> to work, their favorite cafes and clubs. (Of course, the food
> selection was usually limited, but that too became normal.) We
> can be pretty confident that whatever terror attacks the future
> has in store for us, we will soon have trouble remembering what
> it was like not living with such expectations.
>
> But if we, individually, will soon forget what the pre-terrorist
> mentality felt like (certainly our young children will take the
> terror threat for granted, never having known otherwise), the
> same is not likely to be true for us as a nation.
>
> Our relation to the world has changed, probably forever. Our
> government leaders - whether Republican, Democratic, or members
> of some yet-unformed party - will inevitably feel the need to
> limit this newly normal danger. As long as we have the power and
> wealth to do so, our foreign policy will become an endless
> prowling of the world. To manage the danger, we will try to
> manage the world. It will be intrusive and global.
>
> The defining feature of this new mentality is the awareness
> (gained for most of us one year ago, today) that for the first
> time in human history, the advance of technology makes possible
> the killing of millions of Americans by just a handful of other
> people on the other side of the world. Until now, only great
> nations could pose such great threats. It took 80 million Germans
> to empower Hitler to kill 50 million Europeans. Until now we
> could monitor such great nations over many years to detect
> possible danger. Even during the Cold War, we could keep a wary
> eye on the Soviets, and calculate with some confidence the
> methods needed to deter them.
>
> But all that is gone. Now, vigilance is not enough. Now, only
> constant action may reduce the risk. Consider what we have done
> in just this first tentative year of this new era. We have
> invaded and conquered Afghanistan because it gave shelter to al
> Qaeda. We have instructed the Saudis and Pakistanis to stop
> funding their religious schools - the madrasas. How intrusive
> this is, telling a sovereign country how it may educate its
> children and teach its religion. And those countries are more or
> less our friends.
>
> We have pressured almost every country in the world to change
> their banking procedures and report to us the movements of money
> domestically in each country. We have more or less insisted on
> letting our special forces hunt and kill suspected terrorists in
> Indonesia, the Philippines, Sudan, Georgia, Yemen, Somalia and
> who knows where else. We have, with Russia, invaded Yugoslavia
> and seized that country's nuclear energy plant stockpiles.
>
> We virtually compelled Pakistan to change its military defense
> strategies vis-a-vis India. We are in the process of pressuring
> our European allies to acquiesce in the U.N. Security Council,
> and authorize a pre-emptive war against Iraq. If the rumors are
> true, we are already promising part of Iraq's not-yet-seized oil
> supply to buy various nations' support in this venture.
>
> And we have not yet found our stride. The more we fear, the more
> we will look. And the more we look, the more danger we will find.
> And the more danger we find, the more intrusions we will carry
> out. Who can gainsay the logic and necessity of such efforts?
>
> And thus, the imperial period of our history starts. Great
> empires usually are not formed intentionally. >From Russia to
> Rome, dangers at their borders compelled them to take the next
> bit of land. And so on they continued, until they collapsed.
>
> While we will not plant our flag on foreign lands, nor claim them
> for ourselves, we will insist on intruding and searching and
> managing. To do less would be criminal negligence on the part of
> our leaders. But in doing it we will be cursed, like the Flying
> Dutchman of legend, to wander the globe until the day of
> judgment.
>
>
> Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times.
> His syndicated column appears on Wednesdays. E-mail:
> tblankley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020911-50407062.htm
>