Keith Hays Essays from
the Ming Report
The Scorpion and the Frog

This essay first appeared April 4, 2003.  Re-reading it today it seems that its prophecy has
mostly come true.



impress the enemy. The cost of the
impress the enemy. The cost of the exercise was one dead tank commander, one dead tank and
several wounded. They tell us that the escape routes to Tikrit, Damascus or Amman have been plugged by special operations units; that the quarry is trapped in his den.
plugged by special operations units; that the quarry is trapped in his den.


The rationale for this military excursion has been to disarm the Iraqi Regime from its chemical,
biological, and radiological weapons of mass destruction. The world can be assured that this
objective has been achieved. No such weapons have been found, and despite being cornered in
his hole, surrounded by overwhelming conventional force, the Iraqi despot has not loosed that
fearsome arsenal even as tank columns probe into Baghdad seemingly at will. It is powerful
evidence that the disarmament for which the invasion was launched had been achieved before
the war started.

The Pentagon’s military governor, General Garner (Retired) is poised in Kuwait, ready to take his
post in control of Iraqi territory. As is becoming the norm in such matters, the quarry of the hunt
has not been run to earth. Saddam is either dead or fled or gone to ground along with his sons.
Will they Join Osama Bin Laden and Mohammed Omar in the realm of shadows, shadows that
shelter an underground resistance to US hegemony?

Secretary Rumsfeld threatens Syria with “serious consequences”, the shorthand expression of
Resolution 1441 that the United States interprets as justification for the Second Iraqi War. Like the
Taliban defiance is Syria’s answer. Even as we watch the images of conflict the Iraqi Minister of
Information denies the existence of the combat we are witnessing. It is a surreal view seen
through an imperfect looking glass.

I am reminded on an ancient tale of the Frog and the Scorpion. The Frog was sitting on the bank
of the Tigris when the Scorpion came up and asked to be carried across the river, “Do you think
me crazy,” asked the Frog, “If I took you on my back, you would sting me and I would die.” The
Scorpion replied, “Don’t be a fool! If I would sting you then I would drown. Carry me across the
river and we will both be quite safe.” The Frog thought and he was satisfied with the Scorpion’s
logic and did as he was asked. Half way across the River the Scorpion sank his stinger into the
Frog’s back. “Scorpion, why did you sting? Now we are both doomed,” cried the Frog. The
Scorpion replied, “This is the Middle East.”

It remains to be seen whether we are the Scorpion or the Frog but it is certain that we have
plunged into the Tigris and it is, indeed, the Middle East.
Smell the Coffee

I wrote this essay in November 2002 and published it on the Ming Report.  It still is as applicable to our present
situation as it was then:

I was thinking about the contrast between my two grandmothers’ kitchens at breakfast time. Grandmother Heath
was up before dawn. She stoked up the fire in her cook stove with cobs and a chock of hickory and set the
percolator on the back burner. It would burble and sing and the aroma of strong coffee would fill her kitchen and
waft through the house calling the family to breakfast. Each perc re-circulated and strengthened the brew.
Grandmother Heath’s breakfasts fueled you for the days’ work. The Heaths were farmers and Democrats with a big
Capital D.

do her hair, and descend in time to fill the top receptacle of her coffee maker from the kettle. The smell it created as it
Grandmother Hays’ breakfasts barely assuaged the pangs of morning hunger. The Hays were town dwelling people
trickled down through the grounds was as timid and weak as the uniformly insipid brew that it produced. of business and Republican with an emphasized R.
Grandmother Hays’ breakfasts barely assuaged the pangs of morning hunger. The Hays were town dwelling people
of business and Republican with an emphasized R.


It struck me that their contrasting approaches to breakfast is much like the contrasting approaches to economic crisis
of our two political parties. One produces a barely colored hot beverage, the other a potent brew with strength and
the power to lead you to the breakfast table. It is time for breakfast in the American economy.


It is time to advance a Democratic economic stimulus package with a tax cut as its centerpiece but a tax cut to
benefit the people who need it most in a faltering economy. Wage earners or self-employed people making $70,000
or less a year each pay the first 15% of each dollar they earn to the Federal government in payroll taxes. Yes, I
know that on paper one half of that amount is assessed against the employer, but the economic effect is the same
as if the entire tax were deducted from the employees pay. The payroll tax funds Social Security, SSI and Medicare
and, when “loaned” to the Federal treasury it funds the operations of government. Rents, royalties, dividends and
interest an capital gains income do not bear this tax nor is it assessed against any wage, salary or self-employment
income above the $70,000.00 cutoff.

Workers who do not earn enough to incur the income tax still bear this 15% burden, Wage earners in the lowest
income tax bracket bear a real tax burden of 29%. A Democratic economic stimulus package should include a plan to
abolish the $70,000.00 Social Security Tax cap on earned income, the $125,000.00 cap on Medicare Taxes and
impose the tax equally on all income while cutting the rate in half. It is a policy of tax reform rather than a naked rate
cut and one that would benefit those who need relief most, wage earners and small business while funding the
extension of Medicare to cover prescription drugs.

A Democratic economic stimulus package should be designed to increase purchasing power and strength at the
bottom from which it will percolate up rather than pouring money in at the top to trickle down where it will be
absorbed by layer after layer leaving the foundation of the economic structure resting on dry and unstable sand. It is
time to come to breakfast.

http://www.mingreport.com

November 8, 2002
A Clear and Present Danger

Written and published on the Ming Report on January 31, 2003.  A decent respect?  Not Yet!



In a democracy the power of government is circumscribed by the will of the people. In our Constitutional
democracy the mechanisms by which the people may express their common will are codified, delimited and
protected. The First Amendment to our Constitution in its enumeration of freedoms of speech, of the press, of
conscience, of assembly, and of petition for redress protects an unenumerated freedom that is more basic
and essential to democracy – the Freedom of Inquiry.

Each of the enumerated freedoms serve to enhance and protect each citizen in his right to inquire of his
government; to be informed as to the actions that government takes in the name of the nation; and to demand
that the government provide a justification for the action that it determines to take. That right to question and to
demand answers is essential to the proper exercise of the highest office in the nation – that of voter – in that
constitutionally mandated biennial review of the acts of the governors.

No power of government more directly affects each citizen than the power to make war. The cost in lives and
the cost in treasure fall on each household, if the impact is unequally distributed. That is why the decision to
wage war on behalf of the nation is strictly delimited by our Constitution and carefully distributed between the
legislative and executive branches.

The right of the people to inquire imposes a duty upon the governors to answer and to be forthcoming, candid
and complete in providing to the citizens the information on which the decision to resort to war is made. For
the first time in its history the President of the United States has promulgated a doctrine of preemptive war.
For the first time in its history the United States proposes to resort to war without the intended foe having
provoked the act by an act of naked aggression. It is incumbent therefore that the President must first make
the case that the intended foe poses a Clear and Present Danger to the security of the United States and that
the case he makes is supported by Clear and Convincing evidence.

That case must be made not only to the people of the United States but also to the people of the world if this
nation is to retain its posture as a protector of freedom and a beacon of liberty to the world. The case cannot
be constructed of conjecture and inference upon conjecture. It cannot be built upon the shifting sand of
“could” and “might”. Much more than posturing and playground catcalls are required from the President’s bully
pulpit. When a planned war will commence by raining massive destruction on a city of 4.8 Million men, women
and children nothing less than compelling direct evidence that Iraq represents a Clear and Present Danger to
this nation’s security and the peace of the world will do. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind
demands it.
A Hard and Bitter Peace

May 28, 2003 - On May 1, 2003 the President of the United States donned a flight suit, climbed into the
cockpit of a Navy jet to commence the grueling 30 mile flight from a California airbase to the deck of an
aircraft carrier idling offshore. Landing on the carrier in calm seas and a friendly wind he alit from the
plane to shake the hands of the crew and captain. The purpose of his dangerous mission in a plane
piloted by one of the nation’s most experienced naval aviators was to announce the end of combat
operations in the Second Iraqi War. This delicate mission, recognizing the sacrifice of 139 British and
American soldiers in the pursuit of a safer more congenial Iraqi regime, was emblematic of the bravery
of a great leader. He spoke for the television lens with the vast deep ocean for a backdrop, all the time
looking past the cameras to the California shoreline slipping slowly from right to left. The speech was
as genuine as the peace that it ushered in.


Today, May 28, 2003, the allied death count stands at least 202. The newly free and liberated Iraqi
people have killed six American soldiers in the past 24 hours. At least 63 Americans have died since
the President’s awesome exhibition of stagecraft. It has been a strange welcome for the liberators of
an enslaved people. Where have all the flowers gone that a grateful population was expected to strew
in the paths of the liberators? Explosions blossom in their stead, the liberators paths are strewn
instead with land mines, rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire from ambush. It is the same
welcome enjoyed by the Red Army when it went to liberate Afghanistan and instead commenced the
dervish spin of events that ended the Soviet Union as its parts were flung away by the centrifugal
force of the spinning.

History is a patient teacher. Its pace is measured in decades and centuries not days and months and
its lessons are hard. America’s wars in the Moslem east are far from over. Perhaps as the lesson
progresses someone in Washington will examine a map and recognize that our garrisons east of Suez
are surrounded by a cordon of implacable enemies and smiling “friends” that hide enduring enmity
behind a amicable mask.

Despite our leader’s contrary protestations we are indeed engaged in a crusade of one culture
arrayed against another. Western liberal democratic tradition in which sovereignty emanates from the
common consent of the people cannot reasonably expect to make common cause with a culture in
which sovereignty resides solely in God. We may have seen Armies dissolve in the face of an assault
of overwhelming force but we have won no victory in the Moslem east. The only peace our soldiers
have won is the peace of the grave.

Originally published on The Ming Report, May 28, 2003
On this page:

1. The Scorpion and
the Frog

2.  Smell the Coffee

3.  A Clear and
Present Danger

4.  A Hard and
Bitter Peace


Previous
Page:


1.  Sojourning in the
Land of the Blind

2.  One True Faith

3. Making It Here

4.  Taps