Thomas R. Eddlem

As my son-in-law Jon heads off for a six-month deployment to Iraq this week – a war President Obama supposedly ended back in 2011 – I was struck by the war lobby-employed patois in the Democratic Party "debates." The best part of Wednesday night’s in-tandem press conference was also the only point in the dog-and-pony … Continue reading “Burying My Neighbors and Slaughtering Brown-Skinned People”

Americans increasingly view Muslims as a threat to their security, especially Republicans.  According to a Pew Charitable Forum survey in 2017, 65 percent of Republicans believe there is a "natural conflict between Islam and democracy." Amusingly, 56 percent of Americans polled by CivicScience in 2019 said American students should not be required to learn Arabic … Continue reading “The Immigration-Bigotry-War Nexus”

The use of warrantless surveillance by the NSA has brought a wave of naïve statements from a segment of Americans who claim they have nothing to fear from NSA surveillance of their telephone calls and internet traffic because they’ve done nothing wrong. Obviously, the NSA and its employees are capable of using any violation of … Continue reading “Why Innocent People Should Fear the NSA’s PRISM Program”

I‘ve run into a number of self-proclaimed Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) who openly proclaim they favor torture of detainees in the “war on terror.” I’ve always thought that’s a strange thing for a person whose Savior was tortured to death to say. Arguments in favor of torture are particularly troubling for Christians. Here’s how … Continue reading “You Can’t Be a Christian and Tolerate Torture”

A few Hannitized dittobots are not worth the effort in debating the Iraq war. I’ve come to reply in kind to those who scream “treason” or rudely tell me that I don’t “support the troops.” Usually, my drippingly sarcastic reply to the irreconcilably rude goes something like this: “Oh, I see. Only those who want … Continue reading “Carpet-bombing the Clichés”

If 500 years from now American soldiers are still on patrol in Iraq, they won’t be called Iraq’s “liberators.” After five centuries of armed occupation, it would be hard to describe them as anything other than an oppressive imperial force. And Iraqis who attack U.S. troops in 2507 will no longer be “terrorists” in anyone’s … Continue reading “Who’s a Patriot,
Who’s an Oppressor?”

The foiled terrorist plot in Britain last week has me concluding that the terrorists have won, and that President Bush has handed them their victory. "This week, America received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting attacks to kill our people," President Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday. "This plot is further … Continue reading “Bush Hands the Terrorists Victory”

Let’s take George W. Bush at his word. Last week, Bush said of the National Security Agency’s telephone data mining program: “Our efforts are focused on links to al-Qaeda and their known affiliates.” But USA Today and other news sources had just revealed that the NSA is looking through the phone call logs of as … Continue reading “Rise Up, Fellow
Enemies of the State”

I‘m currently a life member of the John Birch Society and formerly served on the staff of the organization for 13 years. So why should any left-winger reading this care a fig about what I have to say? Because of a conversation I had with another conservative magazine writer recently. In frustration at the unconstitutional … Continue reading “Now Is the Time for
a Left-Right Alliance”

Like many Americans, I’ve heard it so many times in casual conversations that I can cite it verbatim: "I’m not sure Bush is doing everything the best way, but he is our commander in chief, and we need to stand behind him during this time of war." I used to respond with the truthful reply … Continue reading “He’s Not Your
Commander in Chief”