From: WebMistress@Fornits.com (Ginger Warbis)
To: Arnold@trebach.org
Sent: Saturday, 9-23
Subject: The Cat In The Hat's Suicide Note

Dear Dr. Peikoff and all,

Thank you for writing, publishing and/or bringing to my attention the superb editorial, "It Is Time To Declare War." Indeed, it's past time. As you note, leading terrorist organizations have already made the declaration months ago. Although I agree with almost everything you say in this article, I would like to add a couple of observations.

Are you familiar with the term "blowback" in the context of foreign affairs? Remember the Contras? Noriega? Pinochet? Milosevic? All of these terrorists, along with Bin Laden, Hussein and others, have been sponsored by our own government at one time or another. Ring now, we have 'advisors' working in So. America against the Communist FARC. Not long ago, President Bush gave $43 million directly to the Taliban in exchange for their declaring opium growing to be ungodly. If we are to "end states who sponsor terrorism" and to not be hypocritical (and we cannot afford that luxury at this time), we will have to end our own government as well.

I think a more reasonable and worthy goal would be to end state sponsorship of terrorism, beginning with our own. I agree with you that diplomacy and sanctions are not a good idea, but for entirely different reasons.

We have been medaling in the affairs of other nations in this way for decades now and the result has been nothing but resentment. Everywhere you turn people are asking why? Why do they hate us? The official story is that they hate us because of our virtue. No, that doesn't account for this level of hate and determination. It is not caused by philosophical abstraction gone mad. That's just the rhetoric. These acts are acts of utter desperation.

I do not believe that diplomacy and sanctions have made us kinder, gentler people or nation. Trade sanctions translate directly into starving children. Diplomacy is just another word for Jabberwocky. "No", our diplomats say, "we won't be bombing you today. We'll just provide your enemies with weapons, training, food and comfort while denying access to basic needs. It gets better. It won't be your children going hungry. Only the very least able will suffer. And you and I can smile and shake hands for the cameras and pretend we're heros."

It's not because our measures have been too weak, it's because they have been too cruel, too arbitrary and too little scrutinized. The nations (governments) officially support the US right now and grieve for us, but their People generally either do not, or do so with the tacit hope that maybe now America will begin to understand these abstract terms like terrorism and jihad....

So, let's not starve the orphans and widows any more. Let's not give the CIA cart blanc to step up the effort to cultivate the next generation of Bin Ladens. Let's send our armed forces to incapacitate these terrorist organizations and whatever government or non government organizations or individuals are helping them. That's precisely what they're there for. God bless `em! This is not going to be easy.

And let's not make it even harder on them. Let's not risk their credibility or much needed morale by engaging in the very types of behavior that we're sending them there to address. Let the children of Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq eat bread and let the Taliban, the Ayatollah and Sadam eat lead; by their own soldiers or ours.

There's another thing we can do to help destroy terrorist organizations. According to Interpol, the international illicit drug trade is the primary source of terrorist funding.

The US government has recently been called "the Taliban of international drug policy." And, indeed, there are fundamentalist zealots among us who are already calling for a stepped up effort against illicit drugs. Over the past 80 years, we have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that prohibition will never effect a drug free America. Current policy has not even effected a drug free prison, school or police force. Even the Taliban finds occasion to behead a drug dealer or two each month under their zero tolerance policy. We cannot hope to cut off this line of support through interdiction efforts. But we can defund them simply by allowing legitimate, tax paying, patriotic American businessmen to take over the trade.

One shelf-foot of stock in a liquor store holds enough toxin to kill off half a football team. Behind the register are enough cigarettes to satisfy all of the nicotine junkies; 400,000 of whom keel over every year as a result. And yet there is no violence or corruption associated with the liquor store or it's owners, clerks or customers. No one goes blind or dies from bad alcohol. The owners of these stores will not engage our children in their trade, either as customers, suppliers or employees. They do not pay a tax to the FARC or al Qaeda. He pays his taxes to our government just as any other business man. Is there any logical reason why the same guy shouldn't be able to sell rolled marijuana cigarettes, which have not killed anyone in thousands of years?

We are paying for a multi-billion dollar program that cannot work. In the process, we provide a generous $400,000,000,000 black market for the exclusive use of gangsters and terrorists while disenfranchising some 70% of the US adult population who, like our president, have used illicit drugs at some point in their lives. Folks, we cannot afford the luxury of supporting the delusions of the fanatical extreme right any longer, if we ever could.

Mind you, the drugs never suffer. They don't even know they're abused. And they don't get arrested or shot or develop blood born diseases or die of overdose. People, our people, suffer these calamities as a direct result of prohibition; our own holy jihad for an Utopian drug free America.

Life is hard sometimes. There is nothing that we or any other nation can do to eliminate suffering on Earth. But we can do a whole lot less of the things that contribute to it. And I think we must. Yes, lets let the military act as military against real enemies. Let's let domestic law enforcement act to protect, not infringe, the rights of citizens. Government was never meant to be kind, gentle or nurturing. It is, by definition, coercion. Lets use it wisely.