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The Forsyth County News
Opinion
This is a page of opinions ours, yours and others.
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CITYCOUNCIL
Mayor, H. Ford Gravitt
PO. Box 3177, Cumming, GA 30028; (770) 8874342
Mayor Pro-Tern, Lewis Ledbetter
205 Mountain Brook Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-3019
Ralph Perry
1420 Pilgrim Rd., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-7474
Quincy Holton
103 Hickory Ridge Dr., Cumming. GA 30040; (770) 887-5279
Rupert Sexton
705 Pine Lake Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-4332
John Pugh
10813th St., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-3342
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Charles Laughinghouse. Post 1
3550 Rosewicke Dr.. Cumming, GA 30040
(770) 886-7937; office. (770) 886-2810
David "A.J.” Pritchett, Post 2
4840 Chesterfield Court. Suwanee. GA 30024
(404) 392-6983: office, (770) 886-2809
John A. "Jack" Conway, Post 3
6130 Polo Club Dr., Cumming. GA 30040
(770) 886-9226; (770) 886-2807
Marcie Kreager. Post 4
9810 Kings Rd., Gainesville, GA 30506
office, (770) 886-2806
Eddie Taylor, Post 5
4195 Morningside Dr.. Cumming. GA 30041
(770) 886-2802
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ann Crow
96 Barker Rd.. Cumming. GA 30040
(770) 887-9640: acrow@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Paul Kreager
9810 Kings Rd.. Gainesville. GA 30506
(770) 889-9971: pkreager@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Nancy Roche
7840 Chestnut Hill Rd.. Cumming. GA 30041
(770) 889-0229: nroche@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Rebecca K. Dowell
2030 Commonwealth Place. Cumming. GA 30041
(770) 844-0830: rdowell@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Chairman Jeffrey Stephens
RO. Box 169. Cumming, GA 30028
(770) 889-1470; jstephens @ forsyth. k 12. ga. us
NATIONAL LEGISLATORS
U.S. Sen. Zell Miller
Russell Senate Office Building, Room C-3
Washington. DC. 20510
(202) 224-3643: Fax: (202) 228-2090
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss
1019 Longworth House Office Building
Washington. D.C. 20515
(202) 224-3521
U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, 10th District
2437 Raybum House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515
Gainesville: PO. Box 1015, Gainesville, GA 30503
Gainesville, (770) 535-2592
Washington: (202) 225-5211: Fax: (202) 225-8272
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U.S. Rep. John Linder, 7th District
1727 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington. D.C. 20515-1011
Washington: (202) 2254272; Fax; (202) 225-4696
STATE LEGISLATORS
Sen. David Shafer, 48th District
109 State Capitol
Atlanta, GA 30334
(404)651-7738
Sen. Casey Cagle, 49th District
421 State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334
(404) 656-6578: (fax) (404) 651 -6768
Sen. Dan Moody, 27th District
(770) 695-3127;
Office (404) 463-8055
Sen. Renee Unterman, 45th District
(770) 466-1507;
Office (404)463-1368
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Rep. Tom Knox, 14th District
Legislative Office Building, Room 504
18 Capitol Square, Atlanta, GA 30334
(404) 656-0188, (770) 887-0400, law office
Rep. Jan Jones, 38th District
412 Legislative Office Building, Atlanta GA 30334
(404) 656-0137
Rep. Jack Murphy, 14th District
Legislative Office Building,
Room 612, Atlanta GA 30334
(404) 656-0325
(770) 781-9319, home
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DAWN OF TAE DEAD
Iraq’s not post-war Europe
By Zev Chafets
For the Forsyth County News
One year ago, U.S. sol
diers helped a crowd of Iraqis
tear down the statue of
Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s
Faradis Square. So ended the
Mother of all Battles.
Now, in Baghdad and
throughout Iraq. U.S. forces
are facing the Mother of all
Insurgencies.
The fighting in the streets
is not. as a distraught Marine
officer told reporters, a
reprise of the battle of Hue.
Iraq isn't Vietnam except in
the minds of Teddy Kennedy,
Robert Byrd and frequent
fliers on the Woodstock Time
Machine.
On the other hand, it is
also not Germany or Japan
after World War 11.
Turning Iraq into a democ
racy has always been a fanta
sy. Iraqis are as likely to adopt
an open political system as
Americans are to make cricket
their national pastime, and for
the same reasons: They are
foreigners' games, unnatural
and unmanly.
What about all those pub
lic opinion polls showing a
U.S. shouldn’t repent for chaplain’s treatment
The usual suspects plus
one holier-than-thou world
power are calling on the
U.S. military to repent for its
treatment of Muslim chaplain
James Yee (a.k.a. "Yousef or
"Yousif Yee).
Refresher: Yee's the Army
captain who ministered to al
Qaeda and Taliban detainees
at Guantanamo Bay. Seven
months ago. Yee was arrested
on suspicion of espionage. He
spent 76 days in solitary con
finement; the case didn't mate
rialize; he was convicted on
lesser charges of adultery and
downloading pornography.
Last week, the Army Southern
Command chief who oversees
military operations at
Guantanamo dismissed those
convictions.
What more do Yee and his
sympathy circle want? They
want the government to grovel
and beg forgiveness for being
too aggressive in defending
against potential terrorist sym
pathizers and abettors.
In a letter to President
Bush, Yee's lawyer com
plained of guards who
"refused to provide him with a
liturgical calendar or prayer
rug and refused to tell him the
time of day or the direction of
Mecca." Comparing it to the
victimization of gay soldiers,
commentator Andrew Sullivan
condemned the military's
enforcement of tjje Uniform
Code of Military Justice
I
majority of Iraqis hungry for
democracy? They are, in a
word, phony. After a lifetime
of repressive rule, the average
Iraqi has a tendency to tell
strangers with questionnaires
whatever seems safest.
No, one year after its inva
sion of Iraq. America has not
won many hearts or minds. It
never had a chance. Watch the
screaming lunatics drag
torched corpses through the
streets and you realize that
these are hearts and minds
impervious to civilized feeling
or rational thought. Not all
Iraqis, of course, belong to the
lynch mob. but disconcerting
ly few seem outraged by its
words or deeds.
There is no outrage in the
wider Middle East, either.
There is also no anti-
American insurrection on the
so-called Arab Street. Arab
dictators know how to keep
their people in line, which is
why most of them have ruled
for decades. From North
Africa to the Persian Gulf,
national politics are ultimately
the politics of the gun. Iraq is
no different.
America seems, finally, to
be grasping that. Arab body
Michelle jl *
Malkin W
against Yee as "disgraceful,
foul and malicious." And now,
along with Arab-American
and Asian-American activists
trying to turn Yee into an
international human rights
poster boy, comes the
Communist government of
China.
According to the Zhong
guo Xinwen She news agency,
the Chinese ambassador to the
United Nations, Sha Zukang,
blasted the U.S. for "racial
discrimination" and cited "the
recent case against Chinese
American Yousef Yee" as an
example of America's "domes
tic human rights situation."
The absurdity of turning this
into a racial issue is topped
only by the sanctimony of
Ambassador Sha, representa
tive of the Falun Gong-tortur
ing, political dissent-steam
rolling, one-child-policy pio
neers in Beijing, who fulmi
nated that "the United States
should look at itself in a mir
ror."
Captain Yee's stateside
defenders, such as Cecilia
Chang of the San Francisco
Bay Area-based grievance
group Justice for New
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Friday, April 23,2004
counts are often wildly exag
gerated. but if it is even close
to true that the Marines have
killed 280 in Fallujah, this is a
Middle Eastern count. Keep it
up for a town or two more,
and Iraq will be as quiet as it
was under Saddam.
At which point, the ques
tion is: What to do with that
quiet? America has to step
back and consider what its
actual interests are. in Iraq and
beyond.
The U.S. has embarked on
a war against aggressive anti-
American Islamic fascists.
This war will inevitably take
America to Syria and Iran,
and ultimately Saudi Arabia.
Iraq (and Afghanistan) are no
more than theaters in that
wider regional conflict.
The reason for the war is
simple: Jihad (of the Saudi.
Saddamite, bin Ladenist,
Hezbollah or Iranian flavors)
threatens American security.
Victory means disarming
Middle Eastern dictators of
weapons that reach beyond
the neighboring village;
demoralizing and killing ter
rorists and closing their bases;
cutting off funds for anti-
American indoctrination; sup-
Americans, likewise pretend
he was viciously singled out
for being the child of "immi
grant minorities." Chang com
plained, "Many people who
don't look very American’ are
being targeted."
This is identity-politics
opportunism of the worst
kind. The fact that Yee was of
Chinese descent had about as
much to do with the case as
his shoe size. The issue is our
continued vulnerability to
Islamist infiltration, particu
larly in the armed forces.
Yee's race card-playing team
conveniently ignores the
recent arrest of Ryan
Anderson, the white Muslim
National Guardsman accused
of trying to pass information
about military capabilities to
al Qaeda over the Internet
as well as the other alleged
espionage cases at Guan
tanamo Bay involving Ahmad
F. Mehalba, an Egyptian-
American Muslim civilian
interpreter charged with lying
about computer CDs in his
baggage that contained clas
sified information from
Guantanamo, and Air Force
Senior Airman Ahmad I. al
Halabi. Al Halabi, a Syrian-
American Muslim, faces 17
charges of espionage, lying
and disobeying orders, and
also stands accused of failing
to report his contacts with the
Syrian Embassy to his supe
riors and of repeatedly lying
PAGE 11A
porting friendly regimes in the
area, and protecting the U.S.
oil supply.
These things can best be
accomplished in Iraq without
turning it into a model of
American values. Once the
place is pacified, the U.S.
should turn power over to
locals (the current "governing
council" will do), lay down a
few basic limitations and
withdraw its troops into gar
risons in the countryside
with the clear understanding
that they will be back if the
ground rules are broken.
Despairing voices ask:
How will this all end? This is
a self-defeating question. You
can always scare yourself into
inaction by conjuring up the
ghosts of Vietnam. But the
Vietcong never tried to kill a
U.S. President, or blow up a
train in Spain or attack down
town Manhattan. If the jihad
isn't put down in Iraq and
beyond with brutal finality,
the Mother of Insurgencies
may be coming to a theater
near you.
Zev Chafets is a columnist
for the New York Daily News.
His e-mail address is zchafets
@ yahoo.com.
to Air Force investigators.
After the Yee case came to
light last fall. I wrote that the
military's dangerous deference
to radical Islam was a menace
to our national security. The
outcome of the Yee case does
not change my position on
this. (And by the way, to those
readers who have demanded
that I apologize to Captain
Yee, I'll send him a condo
lence card when you apolo
gize for your "Free Mike
Hawash" campaign on behalf
of the Portland software engi
neer who pleaded guilty to
aiding terrorists and confessed
that he and other associates
were "prepared to take up
arms, and die as martyrs if
necessary, to defend the
Taliban.")
Nor does the dismissal of
charges against Yee negate the
still-pressing need to subject
to heightened scrutiny the rest
of the armed forces' Muslim
chaplains more than half of
whom were trained by a ter
ror-linked, Saudi-subsidized
institute.
Once again, the hindsight
hypocrites are lambasting the
Bush administration for overre
acting while excoriating them
in the same breath for underre
acting to potential terrorist con
spiracies. It's a sorry sight.
Michelle Malkin is a
nationally syndicated colum
nist. Her e-mail address is
malkin @ Comcast, net.