Kerry is again spouting off like a forgotten teakettle boiling over on the stove -- hot air and moisture, but no substance. As with the professional stage magician, Kerry's campaign is based on misdirection, illusion and quick changes.

In January of 2003 Kerry Said: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

That was then. Today, Kerry is liable to say just about anything. Don't like what he says today? Just wait. It will probably change tomorrow.(1)

And what of those WMD we hear so much talk about? Let's see if we can remember a few past truths here and decide for ourselves if America should have gone to war with Iraq.

If WMD are the only criteria for starting a war, we know for sure that Saddam had them. He used them in a war with Iran. He gassed Kurds with them. During the Gulf War, Saddam had tons of chemical weapons forward deployed for his generals to use on our army. They were not used and our side destroyed them.

Does anyone honestly believe that Saddam had all of his WMD forward deployed? Of course not. So, if the tons of WMD that we destroyed during the Golf War were, let's say half, where were the rest? Fact is, we do not know, simply because, back then, we did not take over the whole country and mount a serious search.

However, the U.S. did have some intelligence about Saddam's military -- probably quite a lot that was never published. The American voters had a few hints of what was happening, too. For instance, On Feb. 1, 1998, Madeline Albright announced: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."(2) And, just a few days later, on Feb. 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton said: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."(3)

Fast forward now to December of 2001. The World Tribune(4) reported:

"For the first time, Iraq has specifically threatened Israel with retaliation for any U.S.-led campaign against the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

A senior Iraqi diplomat said Saddam has seven million combatants called the Quds Army. The diplomat said Iraq would 'swallow Israel up' if his country is attacked."

"'The Palestinian cause and liberation of Jerusalem as well as campaign against Israel is a fundamental issue for Iraq, just like many other Islamic states,' Iraqi charge d'affaires in Teheran Abdul Sattar Izzeddin Rawi said."

The Tribune also reported: "At the same time, Rawi told the official Iranian news agency IRNA that Saddam has sent three messages to the United States and its European allies. The messages warned against any attack on Baghdad. The diplomat said Kurds in northern Iraq would suffer greatly if they cooperate in any U.S.-led effort to topple Saddam."

Also that December, The Telegraph in England broke more interesting news:

"Uranium [and cyanide] has been found in an al-Qa'eda base outside Kandahar - the first evidence that Osama bin Laden had obtained materials for a nuclear Arsenal . . . ."

During the war in Afghanistan, Bill Gertz reported in The Washington Times that "U.S. intelligence agencies have spotted scores of Iranian intelligence and military personnel deep inside Afghanistan working to destabilize the interim government." . . .

"The Iranians include agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Iranian spy service, and Iranian special forces troops from the Revolutionary Guards Corps, said officials familiar with intelligence reports."

Last June, the World Tribune(5) reported where some of Iraq's WMD's were.

"The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program. The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared. . . . In April, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed El Baradei said material from Iraqi nuclear facilities were being smuggled out of the country."

Last week the USMC published a very interesting report -- complete with very nice photos -- concerning where terrorist and others are finding weapons. United States Marines, it seems, located one stash containing 600,000 TONS of explosives in Iraq! That included mortars, rockets and all sorts of munitions necessary to keep an army of terrorists worldwide well equipped for many years.(6)

Another point is, Iraq is the size of the State of California and there are weapons of many varieties hidden all over the country. Finding them all is not easy.

By deposing Saddam and his government, President Bush decapitated one of terrorism's major financiers and weapons suppliers. Unlike some others, I think of that as a very smart move.

Along with that action, our military made it possible for 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq to get a taste of freedom for the first time in their lifetimes.

1. http://www.kerryoniraq.com/

2. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/01/iraq/

3. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/18/iraq.political.analysis/

4. http://216.26.163.62/2001/me_iraq_12_04.html

5. http://216.26.163.62/2004/me_iraq_06_11.html

6. http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/ad983156332a819185256cb600677af3/7377f6c51c599da985256edf0052b404?OpenDocument

Last week I mentioned that Kerry's platform is almost indistinguishable from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) platform. Many folks (especially yellow-dog Democrats) wrote wanting more Information about that accusation.

Therefore, this week we list the ten points stipulated by CPUSA(1) and match them up with text taken directly from the Kerry-Edwards (K-E) agenda.(2) Slight editing was used in the K-E sections, but only enough to make the text a little more readable.

CPUSA: Bush is destroying workers rights and outsourcing jobs instead of protecting the right to organize and creating new jobs rebuilding schools, bridges, roads and hospitals.

K-E: . . . Create good-paying jobs here, not ship them overseas; support our unions; establish a National Education Trust Fund to ensure that schools always get the funding they need; offer a fully refundable College Opportunity Tax credit on up to $4,000 of tuition for every year of college.

CPUSA: Bush is privatizing Medicare, Social Security and public education with phony reforms instead of enacting health care for all, protecting retirement funds and full funding for public education through college.

K-E: . . . use targeted tax cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child; make affordable health care a right -- not a privilege -- for every American.

CPUSA: Bush is bankrupting the Federal Government with giant tax cuts for the very rich and super-funds to the military instead of securing the budget for human needs by taxing the rich and spending on human needs.

K-E: . . . cut the deficit in half during first four years in office; end corporate welfare as we know it; roll back the Bush tax cuts.

CPUSA: Bush is rolling back civil rights gains instead of enforcing and expanding affirmative action to end racism in all areas of life.

K-E: . . . extremist judges are turning back the clock on our 40-year march toward equality; will strongly enforce our nation's civil rights laws, support affirmative action to reduce discrimination and expand opportunity, and only appoint judges with a record of enforcing the nation's civil rights and anti-discrimination laws.

CPUSA: Bush is curtailing women's rights and choice by undermining Roe v. Wade instead of upholding the right to choice and ending the gender wage gap.

K-E: . . . help Balance Work And Family; close The Pay Gap; Protect Women's Health And Right To Choose; only nominate individuals to the federal bench whose records demonstrate a respect for the full range of constitutional rights, including the right to privacy and the right to choose.

CPUSA: Bush is abusing immigrant workers in low-wage jobs instead of providing a clear path to citizenship and equal rights.

K-E: . . . offer a reform bill in his first 100 days that allows immigrants to earn legalization and encourages family reunification.

CPUSA: Bush is exploiting and ruining the environment by protecting corporate polluters instead of conserving our natural resources for the public good.

K-E: The League of Conservation Voters called Kerry an "environmental champion." K-E will: improve the environment in backyards and communities across America; revitalize contaminated industrial sites, get toxics [sic.] out of communities; guarantee our children access to clean, safe parks and baseball fields; take on traffic congestion and sprawl; reverse the Bush-Cheney rollbacks to our Clean Air Act; plug loopholes in the law; take aggressive action to stop acid rain; use innovative, job-creating programs to reduce mercury emissions and other emissions that contribute to global warming.

CPUSA: Bush's war in Iraq is a disaster for our security and economy. He is pushing for more preemptive wars and for first strike nuclear military policy instead of negotiations and cooperation utilizing the UN.

K-E: Today, our leadership has walked away from more than a century of American leadership in the world to embrace a new -- and dangerously ineffective -- American disregard for the world. They bully instead of persuade. They act alone when they could assemble a team. They confuse leadership with going it alone.

CPUSA: Bush is denying civil liberties and free speech in the name of fighting terrorism instead of repealing the USA Patriot Act and helping cities, towns and states fund firefighters and police.

K-E: Our first defenders will respond to any attack with courage and heroism-but they also need the equipment and manpower to do the job; believe in an America that is safe and free, and [promise to] protect personal liberties as well as personal security.

CPUSA: Bush discriminates against Gays and Lesbians with a Constitutional Amendment instead of expanding civil rights and liberties for all.

K-E: . . . strongly enforce our nation's civil rights laws; support affirmative action to reduce discrimination and expand opportunity; strongly enforce equal justice for all victims of hate violence; back the Fairness Act to reverse damage done to civil rights laws by right-wing judges.

1. http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/585/1/27/

2. http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/

Share-cropping became common in the United States after the Civil War. Back then, many Southern plantations had ample land, but little money to pay wages. At the same time, a large segment of the population was left impoverished, with little prospect of earning an adequate living. So, it was little surprise that the landed people -- those with the means of producing a product -- contracted with the poor, who had labor to offer, to produce a product from which both might profit.

Share croppers normally received a home, the necessary tools, farm animals, and sometimes even some education, for their labor. They also received a share in the profit -- usually, about half -- from the fruits of their labor.

This arrangement was somewhat similar to the arrangement of the serfs of England. Both groups were tied to the land owner. Both paid half of the product of their labor for the privilege of living and working on the land. And, with both, the amount of freedom allowed to the workers by the landowners was often quite arbitrary.

Usually, the land owner told them what they will do, how they are to do it and when they were expected to do it. For instance, the land owners wished to insure that everyone in the family would be available to work the fields during the growing season. To that end, they even suspended education every summer.

Today, few of us work the fields. Yet, are we less of a share-cropper? Clearly, half of all the proceeds of our labor is still paid to the ultimate landowner, the government. Unlike serfs or share-croppers, we must now purchase the land on which we live. Yet, the ultimate landowner -- the government -- still instructs us on what we may or may not do with that land.

There was a time in our common law when it was taught that "Every man's house is his castle; and even though the winds of heaven may blow through it, the King may not enter." That was, of course, to include the sheriff, the tax collector, and all other police officers too. However, the Lords and Ladies of Congress did not find this common law maxim expedient to the expressed goals of modern government. Consequently, they found ways to totally trash the concept.

Not to be outdone by the original land-barons of old, today's government has decreed "servient estate" over our property to itself. That is, federal, state and local governments have passed laws allowing government agents easement to our private property. Consequently, not only can today's government place restrictions on the use of private property, government agents may now search and seize private property almost at will.

You think not? Violate some incomprehensible wetland law and the Army (Corps of Engineers) comes after you. Forget to pay property tax, or what the IRS says you owe, and men with guns come to run you off of your land. And, God forbid some farmer would grow a crop that is not politically correct. . . .

A court trial is no longer usually necessary to confiscate private property. But, even if there is cause for trial, first you must relinquish possession of your property to the applicable government agency. Then, you may go to trial.

Adding insult to injury, the Supreme Court recently approved government's taking of private property by saying that forfeiture was different than punishment. This opinion gave police, and most other government agencies, cart blanche to confiscate private property for a whole host of reasons. And they do. There is great incentive for government agencies to confiscate private property. By law, they then use the proceeds from selling forfeited property to supplement the agency's budget.

So too with the concept of privacy. Like the land owner of old, today's government keeps very good records on its citizens. Hundreds of citizen databases exist throughout the country, containing everything from education, criminal and medical to financial records.

Worse, all of these databases will soon all be connected, allowing any bureaucrat to instantly compile a complete dossier on any American citizen.

Today's government schools no longer teach much about the relationship between the European serf and Master. Nor do they teach much about the tenuous relationship between the Southern share-croppers and land owners. Perhaps there is good reason for that.

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