One Hand Clapping essays page

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Here are my essays on topics relevant to various topics and events. Usually, these are long postings that first appeared as a daily entries.

Essays are arranged by category.

IRAQ CONFLICT RELATED ESSAYS

Just cause exists for action against Iraq - My commentary published by the United Methodist News Service

Is UN approval required for the US to fight Iraq? Why no treaty, including the UN Charter, can trump the US Constitution.

A little history of the United Nations The Great Powers founded it to preserve their hegemony over the globe

Why isolationism cannot work for America

American Holy War

Containing Saddam: There must be no Cold War re-run!

Does the peace movement really have good intentions? No.


RELIGION AND WAR

Western Law, Islamic Law and the Ordering of Society
What's at stake in the struggle with Arab-Muslim terrorists

Once you have read my essay, go to read, "Why We Fight America," by al Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith, released June 21, 2002.

Islamic Fundamentalism Explained The religious roots of the terror attacks against America (written in Sept. 2001)

The pacifist fallacies.

The backward thinking of anti-war religious pronouncements.

Why war objectors lack strategic vision

Politics, national interest and just war

Categories of objections to war

A Brief Survey of What the Bible Says About War

Is America Justified to Use Force?

The problem with pacifism is pacifists


An idea is not a plan! Wishful thinking passes for theological reflection nowadays

The left-wing of the Church is at it again - Brit clerics call potential campaign against Iraq "wicked and foolhardy"

Does the peace movement really have good intentions?


RELIGION

Is God the Problem?
The God we worship shapes the kind of people we are.

The metrosexual Jesus - Would you trust your eternity to this guy? Neither would I.

Justified homicide by clergy

Jesus the Jew

"Religion makes some people murderously violent, but with others, it seems to cause blind idiocy."

Is Christianity more user-friendly than Islam? - Why language matters

Reinhold Niebuhr on love and justice

Crisis in mainstream American religion?

United Methodist theologian warns against clergy idolatry

Pastoral failure and military service; Worshiping a golden calf of "peace" and fantasy theology; how the Church fails its youth

God, pain and suffering

Islam's worst enemy is itself, says a Muslim in England.

Is speeding a sin?

What to say and not to say to the grieving

Preaching on homosexuality

Science and Islam

God of Jesus, god of Mohammed

Univ. study: Americans are among world's most religious

God, Hell and human destiny

Parting of Red Sea by Moses done "through the laws of physics" - Russian researchers explain natural causes for biblical miracle

God, life and liberty



MILITARY AND FOREIGN POLICY

A four-part series:

Osama bin Laden’s strategic plan - well, folks, he ain’t got one

Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq

Why does al Qaeda fight Americans in Iraq?

The Saddam - bin Laden connection

The Soil of Arab Terrorism

More on al Qaeda's strategy, or its lack

Al Qaeda's grim present and bleak future

The Big Picture: There's a difference between a rationale for the war and its casus belli. See also Iraq is the opening act

Ending Saddam's regime without war - there are no perfect solutions, selection of risks must be made 

Invasion as the least-lethal option

When I worked with Wesley Clark. No kidding, I really did, briefly.

Chaplains bearing arms in combat - is it ever permissible?

"Technology beyond belief"

Berkeley professor on the Constitution and warmaking powers

The Left and the Right: united by anti-Judaism

Politics, national interest and just war - Part One and Part Two

Why Iraq Will Defeat Arms Inspectors - Explained by Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, and Kelly Motz, editor of IraqWatch.org.

Flexibility is the key to success in today's modern, volunteer, all-action Army! An essay on why improvisation is central to how the US military fights

A case against the Iraq war

Another nail in NATO’s coffin

Saddam's most dangerous failure - Saddam's fundamental ineptitude as a leader is exactly what makes him singularly dangerous.

Flexibility is the key to success in today's modern, volunteer, all-action Army! An essay on why improvisation is central to how the US military fights

Fighting a winter campaign in Iraq: Operational considerations of a large-scale campaign this winter. (I wrote this in August 2002 and then predicted a campaign against Iraq no earlier than mid-February 2003, if one came.)

Belling the cat by general assembly - A modern fable
The United Mouse General Assembly gathered to discuss the lethal threat against them posed by the cat.

Israel's birth problem was highly similar to the Palestinians' - who shall have the monopoly on military force?

Improvisation is the key to the American way of war

A basic cannon primer

How tankers have fun with reporters

Infantry rifle combat distances unchanged since World War I

Precision Weapons, Abject Defeat, and Reshaping Societies
How precision weapons may make sealing a victory difficult.

Is al Qaeda Already Finished?
They were not prepared for the American response to 9/11

HISTORIC ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE WEST
why the West is free and prosperous and the Middle East is not.

Firebase Four-Papa-One, Korean DMZ, 1978

When I visited North Korea

The draft: arguments for and against

The plantation mentality of the Left - The little people just want a hot supper, the rest is beyond their simple concerns

Saddened, but not surprised - it was never a question of "if," but only of "when" and "how"; why I have never been angry at the terror attacks

"BOURGEOISOPHOBIA," MATHER, FRANKLIN AND LINCOLN
the clash of spiritual purity with material increase and America's national purpose.

Historical Development of the Separation of Church and State in the West - Part 1 and Part 2. A couple of important events that separated the secular and the spiritual.

The heart of the problem between the Palestinians and Israel
why lasting peace will be so difficult to gain.

What sank the S.S. Lusitania?

The decline of Europe - more retirees

Western Muslims' despair of the Muslim world: here and here and here and here

Model case for UN failure

Reforming the United Nations - from the inside out

The Saudis' vulnerability

Why the USA is the world's only hyperpower - It's the size of the country, the economy and the population

"Those are Regulars, by God!"

The fall of the House of Saud

The economic basket case called the European Union

Al Qaeda’s primary war is against other Muslims

A new thing in American history

 

DOMESTIC ISSUES

The duty of the wealthy is to be robbed by the government

Beware the compassion police - Why compassion cannot be a basis for public policy

Why State Lotteries are "Stupidity Taxes" and Here

If Congress votes reparations, everybody will be black.
That which is subsidized, increases - it's the oldest law of economics

Civilization, Violence, Sovereignty and the Second Amendment
Why the right to keep and bear arms is the fundamental right of a sovereign people.

Tax cuts and empty hotel rooms

What is a "special interest?" Also here

Speaking of marriage and divorce. . . . See also Gay marriages? Look at divorce laws first

Wealth and poverty in America and the world

Unreported American income greater than the defense budget

Economic iconoclasm - The poor are getting richer, too

Domestic and environmental protectionism - recipe for famine

Boyhood is a disorder that must be cured. But yes, ADHD is real, too. See also "Manliness and its lack."

Men, women, marriage -- or not

Is there any organizing principle to the Bush administration?


REFLECTIONS

The only other Confederate executed for war crimes - The Andersonville POW camp's commandant was one, and well known. Here is the story of the only other Confederate soldier executed for war crimes by the US government. But was the execution real, or staged? A fascinating, true story.

What makes a hero?
Ordinary people do extraordinary things

Evolution and Creationism -- why the current political arguments are uninformed and misguided.

Ambush journalism Thoughts on journalistic accountability

The Great Satan: Debt

Death at Three Bridges Station

Customizing a shotgun for target shooting - Reducing recoil and enhancing aiming

Harry Potter book a bust! Sales plummet overnight!

How Bob Hope almost made me rich

Mass murder any minute, now

The atom bombings of Japan - did they really end the war?

Metrosexuality and its cure

Movie iconoclasm: The Day the Earth Stood Still has not withstood the test of time

"True communism" - a true story of the old Soviet Union - Why planned economies cannot succeed

How Parisian taxicabs wrecked the world. Would the world now be better off if Germany had won the Battle of the Marne? An historical thought experiment. . .

Roast your coffee at home - you'll be glad you did!

Who is a "Senior Administration Official?"

Why neither party wants the Plame investigation to succeed

War and reconciliation: only in America? Why did the Civil War not carry on?

Veterans Day Reflection