Spy The News! Poll Results: 2008 Presidential Candidates

The results are in from last week's Spy the News! poll, which asked readers to identify which 2008 Presidential candidate best represented their values. Here are the results of our poll:

Mitt Romney 33%
Rudy Giuliani 33%
Newt Gingrich 17%
John McCain 6%
John Edwards 6%
None on list 6%

Those not receiving any votes: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, Sam Brownback, Bill Richardson.

Visit Spy the News! to participate in this week's poll: Which Single Issue Would Prevent You From Voting For a 2008 Presidential Candidate?

Blogs, Radio Talkers Use Mall Killer's Muslim Affiliation for Shock Value: Ignore Youth's Traumatic Escape from Bosnian Genocide

Are conservative blogs and news sites exploiting the fact that the Trolley Square Mall shooter, Sulejman Talovic, was Muslim simply to attract site traffic? Elaine Jarvik, Deborah Bulkeley, and Ben Winslow of the Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City) provided two very important follow-up articles in today’s edition about the slayings at the Trolley Square Mall earlier this week. Jarvik and Bulkeley took conservative sites to task for declaring, without any evidence, that because Talovic was Muslim he must have engaged in “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” as argued by Jihad Watch.

The authors cite emotion-inducing headlines from Little Green Footballs and MichaelSavage.com as incorrectly distilling the tragedy in Salt Lake City down to a single theme: “Salt Lake City Killer Was a Muslim.” As a regular reader of both sites criticized in this article, and as Spy The News! readers know, I have dedicated a career to countering ideologies like radical Islam. However, I sided with the authors in their assessment that the shooter’s religion played an important role in the incident, but not for the “jihadist” reasons headlined by Jihad Watch and Little Green Footballs.

Before casting stones at Muslims in general or specifically Sulejman Talovic himself, perhaps news sites and bloggers should have delved into the background of this young man prior to publishing scathing headlines designed to incite hatred and fear.

The second Deseret Morning News article, by Ben Winslow with the assistance of a Bosnian news reporter, described in great detail the experiences that make the Trolley Square shooter very different from the teen slayers at Columbine or other youthful murderers. The article, “A Child of Violence: Talovic Survived Genocide,” should cause many to rethink their assumptions that Talovic acted out any “jihad” impulse. While it is true that he was Muslim, there is no evidence he was active in any local mosques and most of his ties to regular Islamic worship were cut when his family emigrated to the U.S. after five years as refugees from Milosevic’s genocide in Bosnia.

From Winslow’s article, the following excerpts shed light on what Talovic experienced at the tender age of 7 and through more than 5 years of his youth. Spy The News! urges readers and fellow bloggers to see the forest in this situation (suffered genocide trauma), and not merely the trees (he was Muslim):

As a little boy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sulejman Talovic hid in fear from the Serb military forces who were slaughtering Muslim men and boys as war and genocide ravaged his country . . . . neighbors also acknowledged that the war in Bosnia likely left its mark on the boy. During the war, the family lived for five years as refugees in Bosnia, and spent almost a year in the mountains hiding from the Serb military forces, neighbors said. Up to 200,000 people were killed and 1.8 million others lost their homes in Bosnia's 1992-95 war. . . .

The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina forced the Talovic family to live as refugees. From 1993 until they emigrated to the United States in 1998, they were on the run, moving from village to village.

They lived near Srebrenica, where more than 8,300 Muslim boys and men were killed in 1995 by Serb forces loyal to ex-Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Sulejman Talovic was 7 years old then.

The atrocities of war and "ethnic cleansing," and the pressures of daily life in a new country after he immigrated to the United States, could have created immense pressure on Talovic, according to Greg Jurkovic, a psychology professor at Georgia State University who has studied Bosnian teenagers in both Atlanta and Sarajevo.

"What we're finding is that so many of these kids are suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)," he said. "What seems to be most important is what they were exposed to, their war exposure." [emphasis added]

Some argue that because he survived genocide against Muslims at the hands of “Christian” Serbs he was thus acting out a desire to kill infidels when he entered the Trolley Square Mall. However, that conclusion ignores the fact that the genocide was a personally traumatic experience that scarred the boy psychologically. Perhaps the authors of Little Green Footballs and Jihad Watch should visit the psychiatric emergency units at various Veterans Administration hospitals to witness firsthand the mental illnesses produced by battlefield trauma. Schizophrenia (acute or paranoid types), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sleep disorders, Bi-Polar Disorder, and these merely scratch the surface of what one finds. The veterans in those wards were combatants in wars they may or may not have understood, at ages similar to Talovic’s youthful eighteen years.

Many of these precious veterans have attempted suicide with various weapons or available household items; many have assaulted family members they love and responding law enforcement, not because they truly wanted to hurt anyone but because they were no longer in control. A break from reality, or psychotic episode, can occur rapidly or gradually, and the fact that Talovic was calmly walking through the mall does not indicate he was acting rationally or with legally defined criminal intent. A comparison of PTSD manifestations in a U.S. Military veteran and in Talovic is enlightening. Consider the tragic situation of just one Marine, Jonathan Schulze:

Schulze, a machine gunner and a corporal, had fought in Iraq in battles where Marine casualties were high. He had told his family that he felt guilty that he had lived and close friends had died [emphasis added]. He left the Marines in late 2005 after four years of service.

Schulze's stepmother said that she witnessed Jonathan telling VA staff workers in St. Cloud that he felt like killing himself. She said she also heard him tell a VA counselor over the phone the next day that he was suicidal. After that conversation he told his stepmother that he learned that he was No. 26 on a waiting list for admittance to the St. Cloud psychiatric unit.

The St. Cloud VA has no waiting list for its locked, acute psychiatric unit -- where suicidal or homicidal veterans would be taken . . . [emphasis added]

Two other members of Minnesota's congressional delegation expressed concern about the VA's ability to cope with a growing wave of troops returning from Iraq. Many of those veterans are expected to need counseling because of combat stress, lengthy separation from families, financial problems and other worries. [emphasis added]

"The hidden costs of this war are not being addressed," said Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a member of the U.S. House Veterans' Affairs Committee and a veteran. "I've been deeply concerned. I think there's been almost nothing done to prepare for this."

Examine carefully the words or phrases emphasized in red. All of these were a part of daily life for Talovic. Survivor's guilt? Watching your friends and neighbors being exterminated while you manage to flee would cause that. This was also common among Jewish Holocaust survivors. Combat Stress? Being hunted for extermination in the middle of a war zone seems to fit that criteria. Separation from families? Talovic's extended family remain in Bosnia today. Financial problems? Talovic's family fled and lived in abandoned shacks, working odd jobs to survive in Bosnia until they could emigrate to America. In America Talovic's father and Talovic himself have worked many low wage jobs to provide for the family and save money to help bring family from Bosnia to the U.S. Other Worries? Wouldn't these other factors be enough? Add being a teenager in a new country, with few friends to the stresses already described, and a very different picture of Talovic emerges from the "Mall Killer is a Muslim" frenzy.

Note the use of the word "homicidal" by the VA hospital official. Clearly PTSD and other psychological problems stemming from war trauma have led some of our veterans to act on homicidal impulse. Is it so hard to imagine someone who had gone through what Talovic experienced acting similarly? Or is it just easier and more newsworthy to assume he killed because he was nominally Muslim?

Many who suffer mental illnesses are “high functioning” and it is only when you sit down to interview or visit with them does the paranoia become apparent. Talovic’s actions, although horrendous, likely had no connection to the U.S. War on Terror, the Iraq War, or jihad against America despite current events. America is where his family fled to in order to escape Bosnia and find safety. By all accounts, Talovic’s family had no ties to any groups sympathetic to radical Islam, and the FBI has ruled out terrorism in this incident. Talovic’s family worked various jobs in an effort to provide funds for extended family to emigrate to the U.S. as well. This does not appear to be the portrait of a jihadist family.

Ascribing Talovic’s actions to his religion itself or some jihadist mentality may have shock value in the headlines, but it omits the central factors of the incident: The perpetrator’s mental capacity and intent. Both of those were likely influenced tremendously by his childhood experiences in Bosnia. In our criminal justice codes, those with mental illness or even “temporary insanity” are judged by different and more compassionate standards than criminals with clear intent. While Talovic’s death in this incident prevents a definitive assessment of his intent, there is far more in his background that points to genocide trauma, rather than jihad, to explain his terrible actions.

Society's Standards, Not Military's, in Decline

It wasn’t enough for John Kerry to insult the intellectual capacity of the soldiers in Iraq. Congressman Marty Meehan, D-MA, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, has now added “criminals” to the list of derogatory terms used by Democrats to describe our troops. That is what passes as support for the armed services in the new Congress. Rather than praise the military for giving some who have made mistakes the chance to improve their skills and future employment prospects, Congressman Meehan puts a negative spin to recently published Pentagon recruiting statistics and warns that the military is filled with criminals.

Are military recruiting standards being lowered due to the strain of 5 years of the War on Terror and “mounting casualties”? That is the question raised in an AP story reported by Fox News today titled “US Military Letting in More Recruits With Criminal Records.” According to Defense Department statistics, the number of Army and Marine recruits with criminal records requiring waivers for military service nearly doubled between 2003 and 2006, the AP reports. Congressman Meehan argues that the rise in the number of recruits with criminal records demonstrates a lowering of standards by the armed services that is the direct result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Congressman Meehan stated:

The data is crystal clear. Our armed forces are under incredible strain and the only way that they can fill their recruiting quotas is by lowering their standards. By lowering standards, we are endangering the rest of our armed forces and sending the wrong message to potential recruits across the country.

Do the statistics actually reflect what the Congressman alleges? According to Pentagon statistics, the armed services provided “moral waivers” by service branch as follows:

Army – 12.7% needed waivers in 2003, 20% needed waivers in 2006.
Marines – Slightly less than 50% needed waivers in 2003, slightly more than 50% needed waivers in 2006.
Navy – Less than 18% needed waivers in 2003, 18% needed waivers in 2006.
Air Force – More than 8% needed waivers in 2003, 8% needed waivers in 2006, trending downward.
Overall Average – 20% needed waivers in 2003, 25% needed waivers in 2006.

The Pentagon report divides moral waivers into the following categories: felonies, serious and minor non-traffic offenses, serious and minor traffic offenses and drug offenses. These categories are intentionally broad because many states differ in what constitutes felonies or misdemeanors.

Congressman Meehan’s “crystal clear” data actually only show a 5% rise in waivers throughout the armed services between 2003 and 2006. 5% does not reflect an incredible strain or a mad rush to throw recruiting standards out in order to meet recruiting quotas. On the contrary, the high percentage for the Marine Corps is not an alarming result of lowering standards; it is caused by the strict Marines' standard drug use policy that requires waivers even for single experience marijuana use.

In defense of the waiver program, the Pentagon issued the following statement:

The waiver process recognizes that some young people have made mistakes, have overcome their past behavior, and have clearly demonstrated the potential for being productive, law-abiding citizens and members of the military.

While statistically it may appear the military is lowering recruiting standards, the explanation for the increase in moral waivers is far more attributable to the decades-long decline in national morals than to any cause/effect stemming from the War on Terror. When I was recruited for government service, the entity that recruited me had a zero tolerance policy against drug use of any kind at any time. Those who lied about recreational use in their youth were weeded out in the polygraph stage. The standard behind that policy was: in sensitive government positions involving life and death decisions and actions, anyone who could prove unstable or succumb to physical addictions that involve violating laws should be excluded without exception.

In the intervening years, however, that standard has “evolved” as fewer applicants could state with confidence that they had never used illegal narcotics of any kind. The current standard allows exceptions for recreational use of marijuana, as long as that use was no more than a few years prior to application for employment with this specific government entity. Was the change a result of this entity’s manpower-intensive contribution to the War on Terror? No, it was the result of a shrinking pool of applicants who had never experimented with drugs in their youth.

I view the change in standards as a troubling but not at all surprising trend that is impacting all employers, not merely the US Government or military. Finding recruits who have ethical standards, can successfully pass intensive background investigations, polygraphs, and psychological fitness tests, is becoming more difficult. The parental permissiveness of baby-boomers has spawned more recreational drug experimentation, growing serious criminal behavior among youth, and a moral relativism that has taught young Americans that right and wrong depend entirely on the situation and how you feel about it, not that there are clear differences between right and wrong. All forms of sexual deviance are likewise embraced and displayed as popular entertainment, further obscuring the once accepted values of self-restraint and responsibility. Criminals, once societal pariahs, have become the heroes in our popular entertainment, while our government and military are nearly always portrayed as the true villains. Drug use is portrayed as adventurous, daring, and socially enlightened. Drug lords, smugglers, and dealers, are afforded respect and glory in today’s Hollywood productions. Hollywood attaches no stigma to indulgent or illegal behavior.

One wonders how much effort Congressman Meehan has expended in fighting Hollywood’s culturally suicidal assault on American morals, or how concerned he is that Americans are subjected daily to Hollywood’s disdain and mockery of government and military personnel. If the Congressman worries about sending the wrong message to potential recruits, why not start with the anti-military messages spewing from Hollywood and his own party?

Congressman Meehan’s policy statement on Iraq includes terms he believes show support for our troops: Quagmire; Torture Accountability; Haliburton; Rifts in International Relationships; Failure; and Damaged Credibility. He is far less dedicated to improving military recruiting than he is to casting the military in a poor light in order to discredit the Bush Administration and the Iraq War.

Because generations of Americans have willingly embraced Hollywood’s values and definitions of right and wrong (i.e. there is no difference), fewer Americans are living the lives the government and military once demanded from recruits in preparation for service. The private sector is likewise facing a shortage of applicants with high standards, but unless an employer is a government contractor providing sensitive government support, background checks are shallow and polygraphs are non-existent. Thus the decline in moral standards throughout society would naturally be most visible in government and military, where security clearances and access to weaponry and intelligence reports require far more character than is expected in the private sector.

The military, to its credit and despite the AP report on Pentagon recruiting statistics, gives far more scrutiny to its recruits than the private sector, including the news media, gives to its employee applicants. To attribute the rise in moral waivers for military recruits to the strains of the War on Terror misses the larger cultural context in which recruiting occurs. The military should be applauded for working to recruit the best available representation of American culture, and not criticized because America’s culture is in decline.

2 Utah Tragedies Result in 10 Deaths: Remarkable Forgiveness Displayed by Survivor of One Incident

News stories today have focused on the tragic shooting spree at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah, that claimed the lives of 6 people, including the shooter. The idea of being shot randomly by a shotgun-toting teenager while dining or shopping for that special Valentine’s Day gift never really crosses the mind of the average person, but that is precisely what happened to mall patrons Monday night. The fact that this teenager, armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and additional ammunition, succeeded in killing “only” 5 victims is a testament to good fortune and the swift intervention of the Salt Lake Police Department and an off-duty Ogden (UT) Police Officer. The unnamed off-duty officer, according to one report, assisted in drawing the suspect's fire away from other shoppers and returned fire with an off-duty weapon.

Descriptions of the incident include bodies lying face down where they had fallen in store entrances my readers can relate to: Pottery Barn Kids, Williams Sonoma, Hallmark Cards, and an unnamed children’s clothing store, in which the gunman was killed by responding tactical police officers and the off-duty Ogden PD officer. The Salt Lake Police and the Ogden officer should be praised for their tactical and time saving decision to skip the procedure of establishing a secure perimeter around the mall, opting instead to immediately form “Emergency Action Teams” and confront the gunman. As Salt Lake City and other communities who experience terrifying incidents like Monday’s shootings can attest, local police, though often mocked or vilified in the media and by citizens who think they will never need help, daily place their lives in jeopardy in defense of total strangers and are a most welcome sight to helpless victims.

The horrific nature of Monday’s shootings raises the inevitable question faced by families of the deceased, wounded, and psychologically terrorized: Can they ever forgive the shooter? In the aftermath of tragedy, the impulse response, fueled by adrenaline and anger, is usually to bitterly answer “no.” People cope with loss in a variety of ways, but to anyone who has been wronged, injured, or even suffered the death of loved ones at the hands of another, the following story may help salve your wounds and heal your soul.

This article, which appeared in today’s Deseret Morning News, describes another recent tragedy in Utah and is a powerful example of forgiveness where forgiveness seems impossible, and the healing that faith can bring even in the face of indescribable grief. The following are excerpts and photos courtesy of the Deseret Morning News and Deseret News photographer August Miller. Spy The News! encourages readers to follow the links to the article and read it in its entirety:

As Christopher Williams was being extricated from his overturned car onto a backboard to be taken to the hospital, he looked over at his vehicle and the car that had just crashed into him, killing his pregnant wife and two of his children.

It was at that moment Williams said he had a decision to make. That decision, he said, was to "unconditionally forgive" the person who had just caused the accident. By forgiving, Williams said the healing process could continue without being "hampered by another step."

Monday, Williams showed the great composure some had already seen since Friday night's accident as he addressed the media for the first time.

Friday's accident on 2000 East near 2700 South claimed the lives of his 41-year-old wife, Michelle, who was about six months pregnant; 11-year-old son, Ben; and 9-year-old daughter, Anna. His 6-year-old son, Sam, was taken to Primary Children's Medical Center where he was listed in stable condition Monday.

Police believe the 17-year-old driver accused of smashing into the Williams family had been drinking.

Christopher Williams has shown remarkable strength, which he claims comes partly from his LDS faith and partly from his wife. It was through his wife that he learned the power of forgiveness, he said. "This is what she would want to do," he said of forgiving the allegedly drunken teenage driver.

After 18 1/2 years of marriage, Williams called the accident and his reaction to it an "exam" from his wife "to make sure I was listening." He called his wife a humble and forgiving person whose example he tried to emulate.

As soon as Williams decided he would unconditionally forgive the other driver, he said it was at that moment he heard Sam calling to him from the back of the wrecked car.

But he admits the events of the past four days have been a bitter cup. "I know it will all be all right one day," he said. "That bitter cup doesn't have to be drunk all at once. But we know one day it will be empty." [emphasis added]

Williams said his memory of what happened that night is still a little "foggy," and he did not want to discuss details of the accident until he had a chance to talk with Salt Lake City police.

He said Sam is in stable condition with some broken bones and is being medicated, but Williams did not go into many other details about his son's condition. He added that Sam was not aware yet that his mother and two of his siblings were dead. . . .

. . . As far as the severity of the case, Miller [Salt Lake City District Attorney] said Friday's accident "ranks very high in my book." Miller called the accident a "profound tragedy" for the teen's family and Williams' family. She said she has been touched by the father's kindness toward the defendant. However, that will not influence the way she screens charges.

"It's one thing to forgive someone," she said. "It's important we hold people accountable. The victim's role is to determine how they react to forgiving. My role is to determine how to keep the community safe. . . ."

At Highland Park Elementary School where Ben was a sixth-grader and Anna was in fourth grade . . . A table was set up in the front of the school with flowers and pictures of the two classmates. Counselors were at the school all day Monday to help both teachers and students deal with the tragedy.

To help the healing process, Chris Williams has asked members of the community to conduct their own act of kindness or forgiveness by Valentine's Day, write about it and send it to his two surviving sons.

Those letters can be sent to williamsvalentine@myavant.com. [emphasis added] The Williams' 14-year-old son, Michael, was not with the family at the time of the accident.

Donations to help the Williams family can also be made at all Zions Bank locations.

Avoiding Mistakes in Iraq by Revising "Quagmire Quixote" Histories of Vietnam War

Napoleon Bonaparte once stated that “history is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” During the Vietnam War, and in the intervening years since, liberal academia, in bed with liberal media, embarked on a joint operation I refer to as “Quagmire-Quixotism,” in which they tilted their collective eggheads against windmills of truth in Vietnam and published news headlines, body counts, and historical textbooks that ultimately convinced a majority of Americans that the Vietnam War was a mistake and the threat of Communism in the region had been exaggerated. American universities, including the one from which I obtained an M.A. in History many years ago, remain under the unyielding (even to facts) liberal rule of professors drunken with the wine of quagmire hysteria to the point that college course on the Vietnam War are anything but exercises in historical research or original thought.

To challenge the Quagmire-Quixotism professors with military facts or to place blame for failure in Vietnam on Congress, the Media, or the anti-war movement was truly a suicidal act for a graduate student, at least if one valued his/her GPA. Under silent protest, I dutifully digested Anti-American apology pieces posing as textbooks, such as America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, The Ugly American, and other quagmire folklore. Liberal academia, of course, did not curb its voracious appetite for debunking and rewriting long-accepted historical records with just the Vietnam War. Not believing any American should be revered, even if doing so might be in the national interest, liberal history professors and eager graduate students set out to discover and publish any and all salacious accounts of presidential behavior. The resulting collection of theses, dissertations, and textbooks provided us with such important “facts” as Jefferson’s alleged sexual encounters with slaves, Lincoln's manic depression and latent homosexuality, and the debunking of the cherished story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

The Founding Fathers, under the poison pen of these revisionist historians, went from wise and inspired to white and despised, as historical focus shifted only to their race, their wealth, and their allegedly selfish motives. One of my children once asked, “is it true that Christopher Columbus was an evil man who killed Indians and took them as slaves as gifts for the King of Spain?” That was an interesting dinner conversation, but that was taught as historical fact in our local school. Not content with indoctrinating college age students, academia published texts designed to sow the seeds of liberal anti-Americanism even among the very young.

Fortunately, after decades of indoctrination, serious students of history are ironically using revisionism to debunk the debunkers, and the history of the Vietnam War is fertile ground for rescuing facts that have been slowly drowning in academia’s quagmire. A case in point is Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Having previously examined sections of the book, I was pleased to see TigerHawk quoting from it to defend the “slow” development of the Iraqi military under U.S. training and supervision. The reminders of General George Washington’s battlefield errors and the pitiful training and organization of American troops in the Revolutionary War should give pause to those who believe that by now Iraq should have assembled a fully functional national military. Our expectations are too high and our patience seems to be shortsightedly wearing thin.

What piqued my interest was TigerHawk’s reference to Moyar’s book as “excellent revisionist history.” That statement caused me to reflect on the idea that while “revisionist history” used to be a pejorative term for works that debunked America’s heroes, history has now been rewritten to such an extent by liberal academics that “revisionist history” today refers to rewriting the rewritten histories and biographies dominating all current textbooks and classrooms. Years ago in graduate school I could scarcely have imagined that I would recommend a “revisionist history” to anyone. Yet when one thinks of today’s alternative media, such as Fox News, conservative radio, and Internet bloggers, it is clear that all of these are in fact current efforts at revisionist history, attempts to assure that liberal-hijacked media and academia cannot provide unchallenged the “version of past [or present] events” people will agree upon in the present or future. There are two sides to every issue, especially depictions of war, lest one focus solely on the horrors of war while neglecting the reality that at times it is a means to a worthy end.

Historical scholarship such as Moyar’s Triumph Forsakenshould be, but is not, welcomed in America’s universities. Spy the News! recommends Triumph Forsaken for anyone who believes Vietnam could have and should have been an American political and military victory. It is also a suggested read for Bush Administration critics who have accepted the oft-repeated mantra that Vietnam and Iraq deserve the quagmire label. The book extensively discusses impatience as perhaps the greatest contributor to America’s disgraceful withdrawal from Vietnam, with that impatience displayed by politicians looking to make names for themselves, the media, and some within the U.S. military itself. Impatience appears once again to be leading the U.S. to potential failure in Iraq, and without proper historical perspective, we may be doomed to repeat previous mistakes. Thankfully through alternative media, unchallenged biased liberal historical perspectives are becoming, ironically, a thing of the past.