Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That is absolutely right, Johnny Donovan.
And welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this stellar hour, the stellar three hours of the Rush Limbaugh Show.
And by the way, Rush will be back on Monday.
And let's start off.
I wrote a column.
I'm not going to read it, but I'm just going to let you know what it was about.
It was last week.
And actually, I got a lot of supportive mail, but there's some kind of weird mail that I received.
Anyway, the question I ask is, will the West defend itself?
You know, there's a lot of controversy about our response to terrorism and terrorism states.
Now, the first question we have to ask ourselves, and just, you know, we're not suggesting anything yet, but we just have to ask ourselves a basic question.
Does the United States alone have the power to eliminate terrorists and terrorist states?
And the terrorist states that support them, and we know who they are.
And in terms of capacity as opposed to will, the clear answer is yes, we do.
Now, let me just give you an example.
Think about it.
Currently, the United States has an arsenal of 18 Ohio-class submarines.
Now, I know a lot of people don't know about Ohio-class submarines, but there's some really big babies.
Just one of these submarines is loaded with 24 trident missiles there, and each missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted.
So what does that mean?
That means that the U.S. alone, we don't have to call France and we don't have to call England, we don't have to call German or Germany or Italy.
The U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out a terrorist state such as Iran or Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism.
And we can do that without risking the life of a single soldier.
And we just find out where their nuclear facilities are and just have our Ohio-class submarines bomb them.
Now, before I go further, I am not suggesting that we rush to use that capacity to crush the states that are supporting terrorism.
There might be less dramatic military means.
But what I am suggesting is that appeasement will bear no fruit for us.
And that's what Europe and many Americans want, for us to appease these terrorists.
Come to the table and talk with Iran.
Now, do you realize, folks, that if Iran develops nuclear capacity, how long do you think it will be before terrorists also have these weapons?
And who do you think they're going to use them against?
Well, United States is a candidate.
Now, the terrorists around the world, they know that we have this capacity.
That is, the Mullahs in Iran know that we can wipe them off the face of the earth.
But because of worldwide opinion, public opinion, which often appears to be on their side, coupled with our weak will, these mullahs know that we will never use it.
To Americans today, I'm 70 years old, but if you actually looked at me, you'd probably guess I'm around 45 or 42 or something like that.
But anyway, I'm 70 years old, and I lived during the big war, World War II.
And today's Americans are vastly different from those of my generation who fought the life and death struggle of World War II.
Now, you'd find Americans saying, well, what about the collateral damage?
What about the innocent people being killed?
Well, in World War II, that would have fallen on deaf ears.
When we firebombed cities in Germany and Japan, and matter of fact, the loss of lives through saturation bombing far exceeded the loss of lives, the innocent loss of lives with the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And I'm imagining if today's Americans had been around in World War II, after the Battle of Midway, and the long string of Japanese defeats in the Pacific, including Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, had today's Americans been around, they would have been pursuing Japan for peace.
They would say, well, let's end the killing.
Let's negotiate a peace treaty with Japan.
They would have done the same thing in 1945 when Germany was just about on its knees, just about ready to collapse, and the Germans were suing for peace.
And I imagine today's Americans, had they been around, they said, oh, let's stop the killing.
Let's sue for peace.
Now, had Harry Truman or earlier, President Roosevelt, had they negotiated a peace treaty with Japan and Germany, what do you think that would mean?
It means that the only thing that would have been achieved is that Japan and Germany, by having a treaty, we would have given Japan and Germany time to recruit their losses and resume their aggression at a later time, possibly equipped with nuclear weapons back in 1945, 46 or 47, 48.
Now, also, there's kind of another interesting thing I point out in this little article.
Actually, it's an excellent article.
You can get it from my website at walterwilliams.com.
And for all you ladies out there, there's a handsome photo there as well.
We might also note all the occupation problems we're having in Iraq.
Well, we didn't have those kind of occupation problems in World War II with Germany and Japan.
Why?
The reason was that we completely demoralized our enemies, leaving them with neither the will nor the means to resist.
And so I think one of the differences between today and yesterday is that our adversaries in the Middle East, they have advantage that the Axis powers did not have.
That is, they have the Western press and public opinion.
And you can see this, and sometimes the Western press almost seems to be on their side.
That is, you see the widespread condemnation of alleged atrocities and prisoner mistreatment, treatment by the U.S., either at Agrave prison in Iraq, and I've seen fraternity hazing worse than that, or in Guantanamo.
But how much in the media, how much media condemnation have you seen of the beheadings and other gross atrocities by the Islamists who are killing people left and right.
And you see, I mean, with this recent Israeli conflict in Lebanon, with the Hezbollah, you see the reporters coming saying, oh, look at the innocent civilians being killed.
Well, I doubt whether Israel intended to hit the civilians.
They were after Hezbollah.
And moreover, Hezbollah was dressed up in civilian clothes.
But the terrorists worldwide, they attack civilians by intention.
That is, these airplanes, this plot to bomb the airplanes en route to the United States, was that military on there?
Was that a military target?
No, it was a civilian target.
The launches of the rockets into Israel, were they aiming for military targets or were they after civilians?
Or the bombing of the trains in Spain and in England?
Were they after military targets?
No, they're after civilians.
And lo and behold, when have you heard the Western media or any media whatsoever, I haven't heard it, you can tell me if you're aware of it, when have you heard them condemn the Hezbollah and Hamas and all these other groups for specifically targeting civilians?
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that Americans need to get some guts because we cannot depend on the UN, nor can we depend on our European allies to fight this war against terrorism.
You can be on with us by, actually not us, with me by calling 800-282-2882, and we'll be back after this.
We're back.
And for those of you who tuned in late, who came late to class to the EIB Institute, this is Walter Williams sitting in for Russia and Russia.
We'll be back on Monday.
And by the way, the second hour, we're going to have a little bit of Williams on Williams.
Anyway, the next important topic I want to talk about, terrorism is very, very important, and terrorist states are very important as well.
But many of you parents out there, you're facing the sadness of sending your kids off to college and facing what they sometimes call the empty nest syndrome.
I know when we were sending my daughter off to college, it was awful for Mrs. Williams.
She felt very, very sad.
And she was, you know, sometimes I catch her.
I'd come down for a drink of water and I'd see her kind of sobbing, you know, my daughter being off to college.
Anyway, I didn't have any pity on Mrs. Williams because I told her we only had one child.
And I told her I wanted six or seven, and she didn't want any, but we settled with one.
And I told her that if she had listened to me, she wouldn't be so sad.
There would be five more kids at home with her.
But anyway, you might be interested, those of you sending your kids off to college, you might be interested in some of the kinds of things they will encounter.
Now, and matter of fact, and they're encountering at a high price, the average tuition across the United States is $21,000 a year.
And at some colleges, it's over $40,000.
And so you might say, well, what are your kids learning?
Well, at Occidental College in Los Angeles, there's a course, it's called The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie.
Now, it's a course where the professor explores ways in which the scientific racism has been put to use in the making of a Barbie doll.
Well, if your kid goes to Johns Hopkins, the university students can enroll.
Now, I don't know where these courses are currently offered in this September, but they were offered before.
At Johns Hopkins University, students can enroll in a course called Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll in Ancient Egypt.
And part of the course includes slides, slideshows of women in ancient Egypt vomiting on each other, having intercourse and fixing their hair.
At Harvard University, students can take a course called Marxist Concepts of Racism, which examines the role of capitalism and capitalist development and expansion in the creating of racial inequality.
Now, what's the result of some of the stuff going on in college?
Well, according to a 2000, year 2000 American Council of Trustees and Alumni study, and the study was called Losing America's Memory.
And they point out that not one of the top 50 colleges and universities today requires American history of its students.
There's a center for survey research and analysis at University of Connecticut, and it gave its seniors 80, it gave its 81% of its seniors, it gave 81% of the seniors D or F in a knowledge of American history.
The students could not identify Valley Forge.
They could not talk about the basic principles of the United States Constitution or even mention any words from the Gettysburg Address.
But however, according to another survey, they found that American adults can more readily identify Simpson cartoon characters than name the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
That's a tragedy, folks.
Now, this academic dishonesty doesn't end with these phony courses.
There's also fraudulent grading, open fraudulent grading, and actually call it grade inflation.
That's a euphemism, but it's fraudulent grading.
For example, at Harvard, University's Educational Policy Committee found that some professors award A's for just average work.
A Boston Globe study found, and matter of fact, after the study was found, Harvard was embarrassed because 91% of Harvard students graduated with honors.
That means mostly A's and maybe a few B's.
Now, I doubt whether these honors students could pass a 1950 high school graduation test.
And here's the evidence.
You say, well, okay, Williams, what's evidence?
Well, according to the Department of Education's 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, they found that only 31% of college graduates are proficient in prose.
Only 25% are proficient in reading documents.
And 31% are proficient in math.
Now, you don't have to read this Department of Education's National Assessment of Adult Literacy to find out that we're graduating a lot of Doomcuffs from the colleges.
All you got to do is ask some employers that hire these high school graduates, and they have to hire English teachers to teach these people how to write a memorandum.
They have to hire mathematicians to teach these people just ordinary computation.
Now, you say, who's to blame for the sad state of affairs?
By the way, if you don't want your children indoctrinated, I know at least two excellent colleges send them to.
One's Hillsdale College in Michigan, another's Grove City.
They do not tolerate this kind of stuff.
And the kids come out of those colleges reading and writing and pro-American.
That is, a lot of kids are just taught anti-Americanism in colleges.
But who is to blame for this?
Well, for the most part, professors and the presidents, they're to blame.
But I blame the trustees of the college.
That is, the trustees of the college have ultimate authority.
And unfortunately, a lot of trustees, these are big businessmen, rich people that sit on the boards of trustees.
They are busy with their own affairs and they don't know much about the colleges.
And so what I propose, I was on the board of trustees until I quit of a major in Eastern college.
And I was suggesting that the board of trustees hire an ombudsman that's directly accountable to the board to tell us what's going on in the university.
And the president of that college told me, Williams, don't you trust the president?
I said, yes, I trust the president, but I want verification.
That's what we need.
We need boards of trustees to do their job.
And we'll be back with you more of your calls after this.
We're back.
It's Walter Williams sitting in for Rush and Rush will be back on Monday.
And you can be on with us by calling 800-282-2882.
And folks, when I was talking about colleges, I was criticizing Harvard and those other colleges.
I'm an equal opportunity guy.
Now, at George Mason University, where I teach, according to a report, it's becoming, it says George Mason is becoming one of the nation's first four-year public universities to drop the SAT and other standardized tests from its admissions requirements for certain students.
Now, the chairman of the admissions, the dean of admissions, he says it's not race-motivated.
But they're going to drop the SAT and other standardized tests for certain students.
And so they say that high school seniors with a 3.5, that's a B plus or A minus grade point average, and who are in the top 20% of the class won't have to submit an SAT or ACT score with their application.
Well, folks, there's a problem with that.
And I alluded to it when I was talking about Harvard and other schools.
And that is, if there are fraudulent grades issued in college, they're also issued in high schools.
They're also given that.
At some high schools, a student will get an A for and the A only means that he did not throw a chair at the teacher.
That's what the A means.
I know of cases, and I've written about it in the past, where students have graduated from high school with a 3.5 grade point average or higher, and they were in the top 10% of the class, and these students could not score 700 out of 1,600 on an SAT exam.
Now, let's look at 700.
Now, when you take an SAT, you take it, you know, a verbal and a quantitative or math.
For those of you in Rio Lindo, it's a math test.
Yeah, I got to leave LaRush's lines alone.
But anyway, they score a 3.5.
They have a grade point average, 3.5, and top 10%, and they can't score 750 on SAT exam.
Now, let me tell you about SAT.
You get 400 total points just for showing up.
You get 400 points just for showing up.
And so 750 means that you can hardly read and write.
But according to this report, my university is going to start admitting students that have a 3.5 grade point average and who are in the top 20% of the class.
But that's life in the big city.
But they come to a realization when they come to the economics department because we do not play anything.
We do not even play the radio in my department.
We are very tough graders.
Let's take a few calls.
We have Sam from Chicago.
Welcome to the show, Sam.
How are you, Dr. Williams?
Okay.
Dr. Williams, I believe that this country is in a period of the dark years.
And I cannot wait till the end.
Wait till the end?
Yes, I'm hoping that you're not going to be able to do that.
Are you waiting for the light?
Well, I tell you what.
May I ask you a question, Dr. Williams?
Go ahead.
Have you ever served in the military of the United States of America?
Yes, I have.
When?
From 1959 until 1961.
Well, then I'll tell you what.
My labor services were confiscated.
They call it a draft, but it's a confiscation of labor services.
Well, I misjudged you then because I hear a person, a well-educated man on the radio who is cavalierly advancing the use of submarine-based multiple entry vehicles.
Well, wait, I'm going to let you go.
I'm going to let you go.
I said later on, I said, well, it may not be time for that, but we should recognize that we have this power.
But that's what you advocate is a possible solution to Iran building a nuclear weapon, that we should incinerate, and you know that that will happen.
Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions of people.
That's what you say is a response.
I ask you, do you believe that the Shah of Iran was a brutal dictator?
Of course he was.
So I want to understand the concept.
Why would the people of Iran ever trust, like, want to affiliate with the United States of America?
No, no, no, wait, wait, wait.
You got something.
All I want them to do is to fear us if they act nasty with us.
Well, I ask you, if you're a country where the great superpower of the planet for the last century allowed, pushed, advocated, supported a brutal dictator in your country, why wouldn't you as a people of that country believe that that will never happen again, and the only way that we will never allow that to happen again is if we get the most sophisticated destructive weapon on the planet?
Why isn't that a reasonable concept?
Well, I don't think it's unreasonable.
I ask you another question.
Wait, Let me ask you a question because this is give and take.
Okay, now, would you be satisfied, I mean, if, as I said in my remarks, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it won't be long before terrorists will have those nuclear weapons.
And how would you like to see one going off in Los Angeles?
Right now, Doc, of course I would not like to see nothing else.
So how are we going to stop them?
Right now, Dr. Williams, in the east, the western part of Pakistan, is where we know, we believe the people who hit our country on 9-11 are.
In Pakistan right now, one heartbeat away from probably 9 to 20 fully developed nuclear weapons are those people.
They are protected in that country.
You tell me why that isn't a greater threat than Iran.
Well, when we see it as a greater threat, we use the same means that we would use with Iran.
Dr. Williams, do you believe, as I believe, that when we knew that the people who hit our country, and I call them a criminal organization, and I believe that John Kerry was right when he said this was a crime problem.
Oh, come on.
Oh, come on.
It's not a crime problem.
If you had been around in 1941, you would have treated the Japanese bombers as a crime problem, wouldn't you?
Doctor, if it's not.
I mean, you would say, let's bring these people to court instead of wiping them out.
Doctor, if it's not a crime problem, then why didn't the United States of America, when it knew, according to the Homeland Security Chief about this plot recently, why weren't our assassins, our military assassins, sent to London to shoot these people in the head with bullets?
Why were they allowed to get on a plane, and why were they allowed to be caught, not get on a plane, but why was the plot allowed to be explosive?
I do not have the answer for it.
But here's my answer.
Here's my answer to you.
That is, for example, let's say you live next door to me, and you do not like me, and I don't like you.
But if you have people coming from your house to raise havoc, to hurt my house and me, I'm going to tear your house up.
And it's your job to tell people you do not do that from my house.
Thank you.
Let's go to Ron.
Ron in Oakland, Michigan.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing today, Dr. Williams?
Okay.
I just wanted to bring out the point that I agree with you.
I disagree with your last caller.
Rather than the military right now, the way it's focused, is that it's not actually putting down all the firepower against any of the enemies.
It's kind of like pinpoint strikes.
And in World War II, we decimated countries.
And right now, it's like we're punching someone in the eye and waiting for the return punch.
It's always like that kind of back and forth game.
You're absolutely right.
And I think they call it rules of engagement.
And I think that the rules of engagement in Iraq are leading to the loss of many American lives.
I just think that they have to exercise so much caution before they decide.
They have to wait until somebody starts shooting at them before they start shooting at the enemy.
And they have to use so much caution.
And I think it's costing American lives.
We'll be back with more of your calls after this.
We're back, and it's Walter Williams sitting in for Rush Limbaugh, and he'll be back on Monday.
By the way, if you visit RushLimbaugh.com, you will find a dashing photo of me, Walter Williams, and also a link to my website.
And if that's not enough of a draw, this will be.
You can join Rush 24-7 and hear everything Rush said over the past month and watch past shows on the Ditto cam.
And by the way, early in the show, I said, well, it's second hour.
Tune in for the second hour because it's going to be a little bit of Williams v. Williams.
Well, what I'm talking about is we're going to have Juan Williams on the show.
And Juan Williams, for those of you who don't know, he's a very, very widely known person.
He's the senior correspondent for NPR.
He's the political analyst for Fox News Channel and a panelist on Fox News Sunday.
And we're going to talk about his new book called Enough.
And so make sure you stay tuned for the second hour and call your friends to stay tuned, to come in for the second hour.
Okay, folks, let's take another phone call.
Let's go to Margaret in Great Falls, Virginia.
Welcome to the show, Margaret.
Yes, thank you, Dr. Williams.
I am delighted to hear your voice.
I always enjoy the sessions with you.
Of course, the same with Rush.
I have been listening for 18 years to this program.
Well, you've heard me for 14 years.
Of course, I have heard you before.
I read the columns in the Washington Times.
I love you, man.
Oh, thank you.
All right.
I just want to set the record straight about the Shah of Iran.
I lived in Iran under the Shah for 17 years.
He is not a brutal.
He wasn't.
Poor man, the way that Carter treated him here was scandalous.
He was not a brutal dictator.
He tried to get the country at that time into the 20th century.
I mean, you see now what a mess it is.
And that's what he tried to do.
And also, you had at that time Carter.
Yeah, Carter lost Iran.
I'm being charitable and calling him President Carter.
But Carter was mad that the Shah had his SAVAC and that the SAVAC several times succeeded in napping these bomb plotters.
I mean, they had already once done, placed the bomb in a cinema somewhere in the south.
I think it was in Khoram Shah or whatever.
Blowing off Sinaful with kids and children.
I think there was something like 60 or 70 casualties, God knows what else.
And the Shah was able with this Tabak and his intelligence operations to get these people before the chance to blow the bomb.
Let me ask you a question.
Was the Shah kind of trying to take the state away from the theocracy?
Oh, definitely.
There was no question.
I tell you, I didn't know for the first 10 years that there were such things as Sunnis and Shiites.
And the Jews were Armenians, Christians that lived in there.
We, the white people, I mean, I married, had married an Iranian.
I could go to church.
There was a Catholic school with nuns that my children went to for the kindergartens.
There was no problem there.
They had a nice big mosque in Isfahan.
The Jewish people, I mean, not a mosque, what you call a temple.
And there was no religious strife.
I think one of the things I might also add to some of the things that you're saying is that I've been teaching for 37 years, and I've had a number of Iranian students.
And you could not find finer individuals, and many times very talented individuals.
But unfortunately, they live in the regime that's really, I don't know, of course, the cream of the crop, you know, is how Irani lives here.
But if you're asking, was Iran a democracy like here when they lived there?
No, of course not.
And you couldn't have had it, you know.
Most of these people were uneducated.
They still are.
Yeah, but I think one of the things that one of the points that you make, and I think this is very, very important to hear, and that is these oppressive regimes around the world, they export their best people.
And the people come to the United States.
That's their main destination.
And they make us a richer country.
Let's okay, let's take another call.
James Golden is on my call screen, and he tells me that we have time for another call if I get on with it.
Let's welcome Don from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Walter, you were talking about Harvard.
I personally believe that Harvard is a disgrace to the entire educational system in our country, and here's why.
I don't think they enforce academic integrity even on their tenured professors and trustees.
I believe they currently have three or four tenured trustees, tenured professors and trustees who are demonstrated plagiarists.
Well, I heard that too.
And also, look at what they did to their president.
The president makes a fairly benign statement, and he's run out of town on the rail by the academics, which shows that the trustees don't have any power.
That is, the inmates are running the prison.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
We're back pushing back the frontiers of ignorance.
Let's go back to phones and let's have Jerry from Valdosta, Georgia.
Welcome to show.
Good morning, Walter.
One short point.
A deterrent weapon which we are unwilling to use is no deterrent.
Well, our enemies around the world know that.
Exactly.
And so they're playing games with us.
And see, I think that a big part of this is that they have the public opinion, the Western media, and the lack of will by the American people and the lack of the Europeans to defend themselves.
They did this during World War II.
That is, when Germany started violating the Versailles Treaty and started rearming in the early 30s.
Britain and France alone could have defeated him.
But they allowed him to gain all this strength and it led to 60 million lives being lost in World War II.
And do we want to do this again?
That is, appeasement will get you nowhere.
That is, if you appease a barbarian, a tyrant, all that he'll do is ask for more.
And so I'm waiting for the American, and I hope to God that it does not happen.
I'm waiting for these Americans who are saying that we should appease, we should not attack Iran.
I'm wondering what they are going to do if a nuclear weapon goes off in Los Angeles.
I think they should be tarred in feather if that happens.